


A Collection of Incomplete Korman AUs

by calathea



Category: I Want To Go Home! - Gordon Korman, Macdonald Hall - Gordon Korman
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 14:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8718001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calathea/pseuds/calathea
Summary: For that last 10+ years I've been starting (but, uh, not often finishing) Kormanfic AUs. I've decided that some of them are just never going to turn into complete stories. Caveat lector -- I have no intention of finishing these stories, I'm just putting these unfinished, abandoned works here for amusement value/completeness. They are of varying lengths, but there's usually a few thousand words per story.





	1. Airtime (or, the Mike/Rudy Sports Radio AU

Dead Air

Mike was tidying up his desk after Diane's Thursday night show ( _Drivetime with Diane_ , Toronto's number one early evening show, lightweight news and music for the stressed commuter trying to get home) when the unthinkable happened. The station played its own feed non-stop in the main office, a constant chatter that Mike, who had found it almost impossible to concentrate the first few weeks, was now so used to he barely noticed it at all. In fact, he normally paid so little attention to the show that followed ( _Sports At Seven_ ) that it took something really extraordinary for him to even look up from his rapid review of the email that had come in about Diane's show.

On this particular Thursday, the extraordinary thing that happened was that _nothing_ happened. They had been broadcasting a recorded segment from one of the reporters about the fitness of the local basketball star, but when Blake Donaldson, CBLQ's veteran sports presenter, should have come in with further commentary, there was a whole lot of nothing. The silence had already stretched on for at least three seconds when it caught Mike's attention. He looked up, instinctively glancing over at the speakers that broadcast the radio station into the crowded room. The red power light was still glowing. By this time, everyone in the office was stirring, most grinning at the thought of Blake's hefty bar bill when he paid the price for those moments of silence. All the anchors and producers had experienced dead air at some point in their careers. It was a fact of life – there was just too much room for error in the constant switches between music, the microphone, commercial breaks and the various jingles and feeds that the station used. Walking back into the main office after his first patch of dead air at CBLQ, Mike had been greeted by catcalls and demands for cocktails.

This, though, was different. The silence was stretching on and on, at least ten seconds now, and around the room smiles were fading rapidly. Mike glanced over at the steady glowing light on the speaker, and then pushed away from the desk and set off at a run for the main studio. As he sped through the corridors, Diane appeared from the office she shared with the other anchors, and Jason, the station manager, appeared in the door of his office. Up and down the corridors, where the radio was piped non-stop, the silence continued. Mike dodged around people who had paused, uncertain, at the unprecedented quiet.

When Mike finally shoved open the door of the control room, he skidded to a halt at the sight that met his eye, Jason running into his back. Blake was flat on his back on the floor of the studio, while Jamie, who produced Sports at Seven, was frantically pumping his chest in what Mike distantly hoped was correct CPR form, her eyes wild and panicked as they rolled up to meet Mike's through the glass wall between the studio and the control room.

"Holy crap," said someone behind Mike, breaking the shocked silence, and that was enough to jar Jason into action.

"Call 911," he said, urgently. "Mike, get something, anything, on the air. Diane, run through to studio two, take, I don't fucking know, just go, get someone to run the control room. You," he said, catching someone's arm, "Get in there and help Jamie, she's terrified. Who's the fucking First Aider? For fuck's sake, someone call a fucking ambulance."

People were scattering, and Mike dove for the controls, flipping switches and kicking off one of the station's longer jingles. Diane was already running through the corridor, shouting for someone, anyone, to bring up the lights and sound in the second studio. Sarah, one of the administrators from the general office, burst through the door, eyes wild, holding the large First Aid kit that the station was required to have on site.

"Oh shit, oh shit," she said, her voice panicked, taking in the scene, "Oh God, Blake."

She shoved open the door, and for the first time they could hear Jamie's laboured, tear-filled breathing, and her terrified litany of: "Come on, come on, oh God, someone help me."

Mike was on the headset, frantically trying to find the playlist for the next show as the jingle he'd started came to an end, watching as Sarah fumbled with the First Aid supplies.

"Mike, Mike," someone was yelling, "Diane needs you, come on."

"Put her on air," Jason was yelling back, "Just fucking put her on air, tell her to say anything. Mike, get your ass down there."

Mike, swearing under his breath, ripped off the headset and ran down the corridor to the second studio.

"We're back, live at CBLQ, with apologies for the interruption to Sports at Seven," Diane's voice was saying smoothly over the airwaves in the corridor, as he ran into the control room, taking over from Anne, the frightened intern who had set up with Diane's help. "For tonight, we're going to go with back to back music for the next thirty minutes, taking you up to the news."

She flipped a switch, and music began to play, Mike winced after the first few notes, recognising the song as _Don't Go Breaking My Heart_. In the studio, Diane looked stricken, but she couldn't pull the song without causing even more difficulties.

Mike sat down at the desk and pressed the button so he could talk to her. "Don't worry about it. Better than dead air. I'm going to feed you into a commercial break next, and Anne will pull a playlist in the next five minutes."

He released the button and turned to the intern, "Go get me five songs, right now, anything."

She stood up, and turned to go, "Wait, no," Mike said, "Nothing with heart in the title. Nothing about death or dying. Nothing sad."

Anne looked at him, her eyes huge and terrified. "Can you do that?" Mike said, urgently, and she nodded and ran out of the room, almost colliding with the paramedics who ran past the control window at that moment.

Inside the studio, Diane jumped to her feet. "Mike," she started, her voice cracking.

"Just sit down, we can't do anything except get in the way," he said, turning away from the window and pulling on his headset. "We've only got 3 minutes before you have to go live again."

Diane visibly tried to pull herself back together, sat down at the microphone and began to jot notes on a piece of paper. Anne rushed into the room with an armful of CDs, and Mike threw himself into the task of setting up a playlist for the next half hour.

They were into the third song when the paramedics went past again, this time wheeling Blake's still, red-blanketed form on a stretcher. His face was half covered in an oxygen mask. Mike stood up and pressed his hands against the control room window as the little procession came past, Jason shrugging into his coat and talking on his cellphone at the back of the group. As they passed studio two, he pushed open the door.

"Hang on a second," he said into the phone, and then turned to Mike. "I'm meeting his wife at the hospital," he said, urgently, "Toronto General. Bill's going to do an announcement at the start of his show at eight, he's already working on it. They're setting him up in studio one. Just keep her on the fucking air until the news. Scott's coming in to produce his show, Jamie's not in any fucking condition. Send Diane home as soon as the news is on."

Mike nodded, and Jason turned back to the phone. "Yeah, yeah, no, I don't know how fucking long I'll be," he said, nodding at Mike and giving Diane a wave through the glass before he followed in the paramedics' wake.

Mike and Diane limped through the rest of the half hour up to the news, and both breathed an exhausted sigh of relief when the smooth voice of the newsreader came on and announced the hour. Mike flipped control over to studio one, and slumped forward, pressing his forehead to the desk. Diane was white when she joined him. "Oh, God, Mike, I played _Don't Go Breaking My Heart_ while he was having a heart attack."

Mike sat up and reached out for her hand. "It's okay, you couldn't have done anything different. You know what Blake is like, you know he'd think it was funny."

Diane seemed to go even paler, if that were possible, at this pronouncement, and Mike hastily got to his feet, and put his arms around her. People were crowding around the control box window now, and Mike noticed Diane's husband among them. "Look," he said, "I got Anne to call Philip to take you home tonight."

She looked up at that, and Mike released her to go open the door, watching as she stumbled unhappily into her husband's arms, casting a tremulous smile back at Mike as she was led away.

Three hours later, Mike had reassured everyone who needed reassurance, spent more time on the phone to Jason that anyone not related to him should have to, listened to Jamie tell the story of Bill's collapse at least three times, and agreed with everyone that alcohol was in order. Three hours after that, at the bar the whole evening crew had moved to, someone handed Mike his coat, "Time to go home Mike," he was told, kindly, by Bill. "You need a break. Just go home. We're all set here, Jason's coming back as soon as he's seen Blake's wife, and Scott has the rest of the night under control."

Mike nodded, and pulled on his coat blankly. People patted his shoulder as he passed in the corridor, and he smiled absently at them. As he climbed into a taxi, he heard the late night DJ read out the station's prepared statement:

"I'm very sorry to announce that Blake Donaldson, CBLQ's longest serving radio personality, collapsed tonight during Sports at Seven, causing our earlier change of schedule. Blake is currently being cared for in a local hospital, and we'll update you on his condition as we hear more. I know our thoughts and yours will be with…"

The taxi driver muted the radio, and Mike slumped back against the seat.

Trouble Comes in Threes

Mike woke up the following day when his radio alarm went off to find that Blake's condition was unchanged, that he hadn't developed a resistance to scotch since the last time he had tried drinking it, that there were no painkillers anywhere in his apartment, and that there were eight voice messages on his cell phone, which he'd switched off before pouring himself into bed in a drunken haze. His messages consisted of: Jason, telling him to come in early for an urgent meeting and letting him know his car had been dropped back at his apartment; Jamie (twice) sounding tearful and asking him to talk to Jason about how she'd handled Blake's collapse; Diane, drunkenly thanking him for producing the extra half hour and then apparently falling asleep and snoring down the phone at him; Jason again, changing the meeting time to ten; and three hang-ups from a number he didn't recognize.

Sighing, Mike climbed into the shower and let the water beat down on his head, hoping it would clear his headache. When the water finally began to cool, he stepped out into the steamy bathroom, wiped a clear patch in the mirror, and looked himself morosely in the eye. "You look like shit," he told himself, eyeing his messy, overlong dark hair and bloodshot eyes. No more drinking for at least a week, he decided. He turned away and pulled on clothes almost at random, grateful for the millionth time that he had chosen a career where he could turn up at work in jeans and a t-shirt and no-one would turn a hair.

An hour later, he pulled into the parking lot at CBLQ and peered up at the building through the windscreen. Today was going to be a nightmare. Jason, who was never allowed near an open microphone because of his tendency to sprinkle every sentence with expletives, had called him and claimed Mike had to fucking be there fucking now, fuck it and where the fuck was he, unusually obscene even for Jason. Diane presumably would be nursing the hangover from hell. Mike had yet to do any of his normal preparations for either Afternoon with Peter or Diane's Drivetime show. Reluctantly, he stepped out of his car and headed up towards the CBLQ offices on the fifth floor.

Jason was pacing when Mike arrived at his office. "This is a total fucking mess," he said as Mike walked in, without preamble. He flung himself down into his desk chair and waved Mike into his seat. "Seriously. Fuck."

Mike sat down and raised his eyebrows.

"Between you and me," Jason said, gloomily, "Blake isn't coming back. He came to me a week ago to tell me, you know: heart condition, early retirement, quick departure, blah blah blah. I sign a fucking contract yesterday with Nathan Fischer over at CRBZ to come here and co-anchor with Blake in a month's time and then take over the show, and now I've got a fucking four week hole in my schedule because Fischer can't come any earlier, a fucking three point rating drop in the sports hour segment because Blake hasn't been up to par, and a hysterical sports producer."

Mike said nothing, just watched as Jason lolled back in his chair and blew out a long breath.

"So, I called the owner today, and he says, don't worry, Jason, I've got the perfect fucking solution," Jason continued, "You just take this guy, he's a sports journalist down in the States somewhere, he's my second cousin three times removed, he's writing a fucking book, he's just come back to Canada, so be fucking nice to him, he's done radio work, he can do a month or two, oh and by the fucking way, he'll only do it if Mike Webster produces for him."

Mike blinked. "Me?"

Jason waved him into silence. "So I tell Diane this morning, and she hits the fucking roof, because you know she hates Jamie, and Scott won't do two shows unless they're back to back, so I have to take you off Afternoon with Peter and put you on Diane and Sports, and shuffle everyone else around, and now Jamie is having kittens, because some fucking moron told her Diane wouldn't work with her, as if it wasn't perfectly fucking obvious to anyone with a brain that Diane hates her fucking guts."

He leaned forward and pointed a finger at Mike. "So what I'm saying, Mike, is don't be fucking difficult. He starts tomorrow. Deal with it."

Mike blinked at him. "No, that's fine, if that's what you want," he said, "But who is this guy? How does he know me?"

"His name is," started Jason, leafing through the papers on his desk. He had just picked up the paper on which he'd scrawled the new presenter's name when his phone rang, "Yes," he barked into the receiver. "Oh, Bob," he said, and covered the mouthpiece of the phone, to mouth ‘later' at Mike, "Yeah, no we're all set."

Mike took this as dismissal and wandered out and into the main office, where Jamie was regaling the day shift people who'd left before all the data with the story of Blake's collapse. "And then he just, you know, slid out of his chair," she was saying, with big dramatic gestures, "And I was going to call, but I could see he was out cold, so I ran in…"

Mike had heard the story last night, repeatedly, so he turned away and logged in to his computer. He was just paging through the e-mails for Drivetime with Diane when the woman herself came and sat down on the corner of the desk.

"Ugh," she said, "Remind me not to drink. Ever."

"Diane," said Mike, absently, "Don't drink. Ever."

She hit him on the arm, and smiled a little, before sobering. "What's the reaction like to last night?"

"Good," said Mike, clicking through more e-mail. "Lots of positive stuff about the healthcare interviews. A couple of crackpots swearing undying love." Diane cuffed him again, and he looked up at her to gauge her mood. She seemed calm today. "Twelve people to tell you how professional you sounded when you took over from Blake. Never would have known there was a crisis, that kind of thing."

Diane looked pleased for a moment, but then sobered. "Did Jason tell you? About the change in your schedule?"

Mike nodded, and jerked his head so she would follow him, away from the crowds hanging on Jamie's story. "What do you know?" he said.

Diane leaned against the wall and said, conspiratorially, "That Blake isn't coming back, though I knew that before. I overheard him talking to Jason about co-anchoring with Fischer."

Mike nodded. "And this interim guy? Do you know anything?"

Diane opened her mouth, but just as she was about to say something, there was a crash and a sudden scream, and Mike was out the door and on his way towards the noise before she could start to speak.

In the control room of Studio Two, one of the techs was spraying down a console with a fire extinguisher, while the producer and some interns looked on, goggle-eyed, and Steve, who read the news, struggled on manfully inside the presenter's part of the studio.

"What happened?" Mike said urgently, coughing as the room filled with smoke and whatever gas was in the fire extinguisher.

"Short," said the tech, laconically, "Electrical fire."

Mike coughed again, and waved his hands in front of his face. "Well, can it be fixed?"

The tech shrugged. "When it cools down, maybe, yeah." He turned back to the console.

"Jeez," said Mike, still coughing, "What next?"

Diane, who had come along with him, bit her lip. "Well, you know what they say about trouble, Mike."

Mike coughed, and pushed her out of the door. "No, what?"

Jason, who had apparently been alerted to the newest crisis, stomped down the corridor towards them. "What the fuck…?" he began, "Can we not get through half an hour without there being some kind of fucking crisis, please?"

It was the man behind Jason, who had apparently been in the office with him when Jason was informed of the fire, who had Mike's attention now, though.

"I remember what they say about trouble, now," he said to Diane, "It comes in threes, right?"

Her answer, if any, was lost on Mike, who held eye contact with the latest arrival as he spoke.

"Hello, Mike," said Rudy Miller.

\---

Fresh Air

Mike's living room sofa was an ugly grey thing that he'd inherited when his parents sold their house and moved somewhere smaller. It was somehow both saggy and hard, and so uncomfortable that you could only sit in it for twenty minutes before it started to hurt. It said something about Mike's day that the thought of moving was worse than the twinges he was already feeling in his lower back.

He picked at the label on his beer, then raised it to his lips again, swallowing the last mouthful, and then set the bottle down on the floor next to another empty. So what if he'd told himself that he wouldn't drink any more this week. It felt like _at least_ a week had passed since this mornng. Actually, it felt like a whole geological age had passed since he got up this morning. He was half-surprised that his apartment was exactly the way he'd left it this morning, down to the damp towel he'd accidentally left soaking into the sheets of his bed -- it felt like he should have come home to find the place cobwebbed and dusty, or rented out to someone else in the years that had passed since he went to work.

Mike sighed and let his head roll back onto the lumpy cushion of the sofa. The day had gone pretty much how he'd expected from the moment he'd set eyes on Rudy Miller. Rudy was... unpredictably predictable, or something else equally contradictory. No-one, not even Mike, could ever guess what Rudy would do his life next: cross the Antarctic on skis, coach a minor league baseball team in the Yukon, write an article about American college football so controversial even Mike's mother had heard about it. Join the presenting team of a radio station in Toronto.

Mike never knew where Rudy would turn up next, but Rudy had passed through his life often enough though that Mike was at least familiar with the after effects. Rudy was like some kind of astrological phenomenon, a comet, maybe; this huge and unfathomable force that blazed through his life once in a while. Rudy turned up and everything changed, gravity stopped working, the world turned upside down, and then he moved on and Mike was left blinking in the wreckage, wondering what the hell just happened. Mike had been a thirteen year old dork at summer camp the first time it happened, and then front and centre for the Rudy effect off and on for years. He could write a doctoral thesis on it: _The Impact of Rudy Miller On The Life of Mike Webster_ except that would mean probably mean thinking about Rudy far more than Mike had let himself the last two years, since That Night.

Mike stopped at that, wincing away from the memory of That Night, _The Party_ , the last time Mike had seen Rudy Miller.

He heaved himself out of his horrible sofa, hastily picking up his empty beer bottles and heading off to the kitchen. Apparently even two years wasn't long enough for the rawness of that memory to scab over, if he was still thinking of it with capital letters. The memory had rushed over his skin like a burn when he'd met Rudy's eyes today. Rudy, of course, hadn't seemed at all awkward. Mike was pretty sure Rudy didn't remember That Night with capital letters.

Mike set down the bottles and made a quick tour of his apartment, checking the locks on his front door and turning out the lights. He stripped down to boxers and a t-shirt on his way to the bedroom, leaving his outer clothes in a pile by the door, and flopped onto the bed face first. He lay there and stared at the back of his eyelids for a while. The bed had a damp spot down by one end from the towel, and he kept sticking his foot into it by mistake before flinching away from the clammy, cold sheets.

He rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling instead. There was a dark, unidentifiable stain by the door that always reminded him of the hat that Dr. Seuss' Cat wore.

_Rudy looked good today _, he thought, and even alone in the dark he could feel his skin pinkening from how much like the thirteen-year old dork he used to be he sounded.__

__Rudy _had_ looked good though, and Mike wasn't the only one who'd noticed. After Jason stopped them in the corridor outside of the still-smoking studio one and Mike had managed to squeak out something semi-coherent in the way of a greeting, Diane had moved in on them like a shark, her shiny white teeth on full display. Rudy had just raised an eyebrow at Mike, accepted Diane's hand with a smooth compliment for her radio show and allowed Jason to drag him off for introductions to the people in the main office. Mike had remained, shell-shocked, in the corridor until Diane started poking him with her razor-sharp nails._ _

__"Excuse me," Diane had said, turning to stare at Mike with exaggeratedly wide eyes. "Hello! You never said you knew anyone who looked like that! Damn. Have you got other friends like that you're not sharing with me?"_ _

__"You're married," Mike had protested, automatically._ _

__Diane had smirked. "I'm not _dead_ ," she'd replied, crossing her arms. "C'mon, give, how'd you know him? Why have I never seen him before? Is he an ex? Is he a _stalker_?"_ _

__Mike had glared at her, but she hadn't been even remotely impressed. "Tell me or I'll tell everyone here about that guy at the place with the thing and the screaming," she'd said, warningly, when he'd said nothing._ _

__"You wouldn't!" Mike had said, aghast. Two of the interns who'd been evacuated out of the smoke-filled studio had been listening to every word while they hung around waiting to be let back in. From bitter experience, Mike knew that saying anything scandalous near an intern meant that the entire office would know in under 13 seconds. He had timed it once. He suspected that Jason tested their gossip spreading skills before he hired them._ _

__Diane had tapped her foot at him. "Oh, fine," Mike had said, looked around in a hunted manner. The interns had tried to look like they weren't disappointed that their eavesdropping had been curtailed. "Not here though."_ _

__"Lunch," she'd agreed, immediately, before whirling around and heading back to her office. She turned back at her door. "And you're buying."_ _

__In retrospect, Mike decided now, he'd gotten off lightly. Lunch had only cost about half the value of the Canadian national debt instead of the whole of it, and Diane had graciously allowed him to eat most of his own starter and his entire entrée. Meeting for lunch also gave him time to think what he wanted the office to know about Rudy. (Diane outpaced even the interns in her tendency to share.) He'd told Diane about Camp Alcatraz, and a couple of things from that summer after high school graduation when Rudy had turned up at his place, ineffably cool in his shades and his rustbucket car, and dragged him off on hair-raising journey across Canada and back. He'd even told her the story, although he could tell she'd only half believed it, about the thing at college with the rock concert, the twenty-three cats and the Niagara Falls (Canadian side, naturally)._ _

__She'd been breathless with laughter, and even Mike was grinning, having half-forgotten what it was like to tell stories about Rudy Miller. But if he'd hoped she'd be too distracted to figure out there was something more, something he wasn't saying, he was disappointed. "And then what?" she said, as their table was cleared. "That's a few years ago now. He hasn't been around since?"_ _

__Mike had shrugged and tried to keep his voice casual. "No, I've seen him a couple of times, but he moved to the States and I stayed here, and... yeah, not in a couple of years."_ _

__He'd seen the next question hovering on her lips but luckily before she could ask it the waitress arrived with the dessert menu. After she'd ordered, Mike had managed to divert her to onto one of her two favourite topics (Why Jamie Is A Tool, which was second only to The Many Reasons Men Suck, Particularly My Husband And His Under-Performing Ejaculate.) Mike was desperate enough to avoid any more discussion of Rudy that he would even have been prepared to talk about Diane's ongoing battle with Philip's lazy sperm, but thankfully it wasn't necessary, since Jamie's self-aggrandizement over the incident with Blake was apparently worthy of a rant that lasted right through Diane's consumption of not only her own fluffy chocolate dessert, but also most of Mike's apple pie and all the little chocolate things that came with their coffees._ _

__Then they'd gone back to work, and Mike had listened to two people who wanted to convince him to talk Jamie into shutting up about her recent heroism, heard four massively embellished versions of the Life and Times of Rudy Miller, along with the scraps of actual information some enterprising intern had gleaned in a massive Google-powered Rudy Miller stalking exercise, and suffered through Peter, of _Afternoon with Peter_ fame, sniffling pathetically over losing Mike as his producer and trying to cop a feel when he hugged Mike "to say good-bye"._ _

__By the time Mike left for the day he heard Rudy's name often enough to make up for the two years of silence and then some._ _

__"Rudy Miller will be a breath of fresh air!" he'd heard Jamie exclaim, saccharine sweet and already star-struck by Rudy's good looks and alleged wealth. The intern she was talking to cooed in response. Already the office was dividing itself into camps: people who wanted to fuck Rudy, people who wanted to punch him, and people who wanted to _be_ him. And Mike._ _

__"Hurricane Rudy," Mike told the ceiling now, and closed his eyes and tried to will himself to sleep._ _


	2. One hundred not out (or, the Mike/Rudy Cricketing!AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having written Rudy Miller running in the Olympics and winning Wimbledon, I present to you: Rudy Miller playing cricket.

Mike slid into his seat outside the Pavillion just as the coin was tossed and Canada, in a tactical move Rudy was later to describe as "close to suicidal, I'm beginning to worry about Khan", had elected to bat, only to have to stand up again as the teams came out. The English came out onto the pitch to a roar of approval, and more muted applause when the afore-mentioned Khan, team captain and (allegedly, Rudy would say) Canada's top flight batsman, stepped out on the pitch with Ronald Ronaldson, the second man in the batting order. Mike caught the latter's eye as he passed, trying to smile encouragingly. Ron-Ron, as the team called him, had only recently been promoted from the under-19 squad and this was his first international. He was also the sole player on the team that Rudy did not seem to utterly despise, though Mike had not been able to work out if this was because of Ron-Ron's puppy-like worship of Rudy, the fact that he was actually quite good, or some other reason known only to Rudy. Ron-Ron was the colour of old cheese under his freckles from nerves, but he managed a feeble sort of wave at Mike as he passed and a nod to the other Canadian team family and friends in the Pavillion stand before he marched bravely onto the pitch.

As Mike moved to sit down he surreptitiously turned to look up at the balcony of the player's box above him. Rudy raised an eyebrow at him and tapped his watch. Mike shrugged back. He wasn't about to admit he'd gotten terribly lost trying to get from the train station in the centre of Manchester to Old Trafford. Not to Rudy, whose unfailing sense of direction enabled him to direct Mike home even when Mike was lost and had phoned Rudy for assistance. Not that Mike did that. Not _often_ anyway. Mike crossed his fingers and held them up for Rudy to see, the silent 'good luck' symbol he'd adopted. Rudy nodded, almost smiling, but then stepped away from the balcony when the team physio approached him. Mike turned back to the match and sat down.

One curiosity of the international cricket game, Mike had discovered when Rudy made it into the Canadian team, was that fully half the crowd would have a headset on to listen to the commentary on the radio while the game went on in front of them. It was also an extremely successful way to avoid talking to the wives & girlfriends, most of whom Rudy had successfully offended, or to the bigwigs in the Pavillion box. He slipped his headset on and tuned in. After a while he'd become familiar with the commentators on English radio, and discovered today that they were two men who Mike knew only as The Yorkshire One and The Posh One.

_".... it's a lovely day here at Old Trafford, one or two puffy white clouds, but we're told very little chance of rain, perfect weather for cricket. Now, Michael's joined me in the box, we've talked about the England side, it's a good time to have a look at the Canadian players," the Yorkshire One was saying as Mike settled his headset._

_"_ Yes, quite a few familiar faces on this squad, as always," said The Posh One. "Not a country with a great depth of cricketing talent among the local population, Canada has a lot of players who've retired from first class cricket in countries better known for their cricket. It's quite the assemble of nationalities out there. The West Indies, for example, are represented in their two pace bowlers, Brandon Jones, who played for Jamaica, and Kingston Lowery, who was capped more than once for the West Indies."

"Eagle-eyed viewers will recognize the captain, Khan, their number one batsman, from the England-Pakistan tour in 1996, of course. Quite a respectable record in first-class cricket, although we didn't see much of him in the international game," said the Yorkshire One. "And Davis, who'll bat fifth today, we think, formerly of Worcestershire."

"One or two won't be familiar to listeners. The Patel brothers, their father played for Pakistan in the 80s of course, twin brothers who both bowl spin, one left handed, one right handed. And young Ronaldson, at the crease now looking rather nervous while the England fielders warm up and move into position, he's a young Canadian player." The Posh One. "In fact, this is his first international at the senior level, though he's very experienced at the junior level."

"He is. Quite the athlete this young man," The Yorkshire One said. "I'm given to understand there are rumours of him coming to play at Nottinghamshire next season."

"If he is, he'll be playing on the same team as the man currently steaming towards Khan with the ball, Robert Jarvis, knocked away neatly by Khan for a single. And Canada is off the mark," The Posh One replied.

"The player we haven't mentioned of course is Rudy Miller, who's credited in some circles in single-handedly bringing Canadian cricket to some prominence."


	3. Silver (or, the Pirate!AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This unfinished WIP is probably my favourite of the stories I'm abandoning. Unfortunately I lost all the rest and my story notes in a computer crash so this is all I have, and for the life of me I can't remember where I was going with the plot (except, of course, in a Mike/Rudy direction.)

Mike lay in his narrow and shivered miserably. He still felt extremely unwell, even though everyone had promised him that he would gain he sea legs before too many days had passed.

"You'll be striding around the deck on no time," the sailor tending to his basic needs had told him at one point, when Mike was recovering from another violent spasm of nausea. Mike was not inclined to believe him, and several times had despaired of surviving at all or ever seeing sunlight again. His cabin, which had seemed so spacious and comfortable when he'd first come aboard the ship, the Louisa, was rapidly coming to seem like the meanest prison cell in Christendom. 

He had just closed his eyes in the hope of catching a few minutes of sleep when there was a knock at the door. Mike rolled over. "Come in!" he called hoarsely.

The door opened a crack, and Vicky's buoyant curls poked around the edge. "Are you decent?" she asked.

Mike resettled his blankets with trembling hands. "Yes," he said wearily, and winced as Vicky bounced into the room and beamed at him with exhausting cheer.

"It is a delightful morning," she said, brushing a curl from her face. "I have been on deck since shortly after dawn. It is ever so exciting. The captain let me look through his glass and everything."

Mike eyed her with considerable disfavour. "Really," he said dampeningly. 

Vicky just wrinkled her nose. "It smells in here," she announced, after a moment. "You should come up too, it would do you good to get out of this cabin for a while, get some fresh air."

Mike sighed. "I really do not feel well," he said, grimacing at the whine in his voice.

Vicky frowned at him. "To be quite honest, you do not look well, brother," she informed him bluntly. "But I really do think you might do better above deck. It cannot be healthy to lie in this enclosed space."

She came over to perch on the side of his bed and lay a cool hand against his forehead. Mike smiled at her serious face. "You feel warm," she said, anxiously.

Mike took her hand in his for a moment, squeezing it. "It is your hands that are cool," he said.

She squeezed back. "It would please me if you were to come sit with me," she wheedled, smiling back at him. 

Mike snorted weakly. "You do not _sit_ anywhere," he pointed out. "You would spend no more than a minute with me before rushing off to do something more interesting."

"Well, yes," she admitted, "But I could at least keep an eye on you. And it would improve my standing among our fellow passengers. I think they are starting to wonder if you are just a figment of my imagination."

"They met me on the first night on board," Mike protested, but weakly, knowing this was a losing battle. He squinted at Vicky suddenly. "Tell me you have caused no scandals, Victoria."

Vicky instantly looked offended. "I have not!" she replied, indignantly. "Did I not promise you that I would not?"

Mike looked at her for a long moment, but then nodded. "Yes, you did," he said, more softly. "I am sorry. I am all out of sorts today."

Vicky patted his shoulder. "Do come up," she said, "I shall arrange for a dry biscuit and something to drink, and you will feel much better, I promise you."

Mike sighed, and rearranged his bedclothes again. "Very well," he said, and Vicky jumped up and clapped her hands in glee. "I will dress and join you shortly."

"Wonderful," Vicky said, enthusiastically. "There will perhaps even be something to see, beyond the waves and the seabirds, as the captain thought he saw a hint of a sail on the horizon."

Let me dress, then," Mike said, and Vicky smiled from ear to ear and bounded enthusiastically from the room.

Mike sat up carefully, the room swimming a little as he did so, and then carefully swing his legs over the side of the bed. He sat for a moment and contemplated his knees. He was very glad to see Vicky so bright and cheerful, he decided, even if the cost had been these endless days of illness. He had thought, during their last days in England, that her spirit had perhaps been crushed forever by the events that had overtaken them.

He stood up, wobbling on weak and uncertain limbs before walking carefully over to the cupboard that held his clothes. He pulled out some more casual garments, reflecting that their fellow passengers could just avert their eyes if he failed to meet their standards of dress. If it were up to him he'd go out on deck in his pyjamas, if only so he could fall back into bed more easily later.

He dressed quickly, taking the time only for a quick wash with the lukewarm water Jones, the sailor, had brought him earlier, and then carefully tucked his father's gold pocket-watch into a pocket. It was the last thing he owned that had belonged to his father, and he was certain that his uncle would have taken it to if he had been able to. Mike shivered again as he remembered the last meeting he'd had with the man, his giant walrus moustache quivering with fury as he'd lambasted Mike for the part he'd played in Vicky's latest escapades. She'd set the neighbourhood tongues wagging again with some ill-conceived start, and Mike had done nothing to stop her.

"We shall never get her married off locally now," Mike's uncle had bellowed, his face puce with anger. "She will be a drain on my pocketbook forever at this rate, for I will not take her to London to find a husband."

"She is too young to marry," Mike had protested, for perhaps the hundredth time. "Do these scrapes she falls into not show you that?"

"Nonsense! She needs a firm steadying hand!" his uncle had said. He had sat down heavily behind the desk that had once been Mike's father's. "And you, you are as worthless as your father, God rest his soul."

Mike had frowned at this, angry at the slight to his father. "He was not!" he had said, hotly. "He was a good man."

His uncle had dismissed this with a wave of his hand. "Good, perhaps," he had said, "But frugal, prudent, no, as your current situation attests. You are fortunate both that I am willing to take any interest you at all."

This had silenced Mike, for there was no denying his father's death had left him and Vicky in considerable financial distress. Their mother's brother, a man little known to them since her death many years before, had stepped in to save them. Little had Mike known the price that they would pay for this seeming benevolence.

"I have made arrangements for you to travel to the New World, Michael," his uncle had announced, into the sudden quiet. "I have some business interests in a region in the north which I wish for you to take care of for me."

"The colonies?" Mike had gasped, taken aback at this announcement.

His uncle had nodded. "You travel next Saturday," he'd said, and he had picked up a pen from his desk and begun writing.

"But…" Mike had said, aghast. "I know nothing of the colonies, sir."

"You shall learn," his uncle had returned, unmoved.

"And Vicky?" he'd asked, struggling to comprehend this sudden change in fortune. 

"Vicky remains here, of course," his uncle had said, glancing up from his papers and eyeing Mike with disapproval. "Although her marriage prospects are considerably reduced by her antics, I am inclined to consider a most advantageous offer I received for her hand from Mr. Andrewes."

Mike had recoiled. "Andrewes! Why, he must be sixty if he's a day!"

"Fifty-eight, I believe," his uncle had said, censoriously. "He has suggested to me that an older man might be able to restrain some of Victoria's youthful exuberance."

"But…" Mike had stuttered.

"Enough," his uncle had said, fiercely. "There is to be no more discussion. You are excused."

"But…" Mike had said again. His uncle had turned a gimlet eye upon him and Mike, confused and thoroughly dismayed, had slunk from the room burdened down with despair. 

He glanced at the mirror now, grimacing at the pallor of his skin and the rings beneath his eyes that the reflection showed. He had yet to recover from the days of anxiety before he'd sailed from England, and his seasickness had commenced almost the day they'd left Liverpool. It was no wonder his sister had thought him in need of some light and fresh air.

He tugged on some boots and then, with a final tap on his pocket to assure himself that he still had his watch with him, he opened the door to his cabin and, after a moment's confusion, began walking carefully towards the stairs that led to the passenger's private deck. 

Just as he reached the top of the stairs, he heard a shout from outside. "Ahoy, the Louisa, prepare to be boarded!" a man's voice called, and there were suddenly a series of loud thumps. Through the porthole in the door, Mike could see large hooks suddenly striking the deck, and the boat seemed to shudder as they took hold and bound them to the looming ship alongside.

Suddenly, there was the sound of gunfire, and then a rush of feet and a woman's scream. A voice roared from somewhere above Mike: "Pirates! It's pirates! Arm yourselves!"

"Vicky!" yelled Mike, suddenly galvanized into action. He sprinted through the door and into the melee of people suddenly stampeding onto the deck. He could see Vicky in the distance, holding off a villainous looking young man with what appeared to be her parasol, but then lost sigh of her again as he shoved his way past a dozen others. "Vicky!"

Unfortunately, his shout distracted her, and in a moment the villain was upon her, wrenching her parasol from her hand throwing it over board. 

"Damn it, damn it!" said Mike, losing his footing and stumbling onwards towards her. "Unhand my sister!"

He was almost there, when someone reached out and caught his arm, swinging him around and then planting a large fist in his face. Mike only had time for a strange moment of confused recognition before the world suddenly went black, and he sank unconscious to the deck.

 

Chapter 2

When Mike finally swam back up to consciousness, it was to find someone was poking him viciously in the face with a wad of damp cloth, apparently in the name of healing comfort. 

"Ow," he complained, in a muffled voice. "Thad hurds."

"Oh, oh, you're all right," Vicky said, from her perch at his side. She threw the towel she had been using to one side and clutched Mike desperately.

He wriggled uncomfortably, half-smothered as she flung her arms around him and pressed him close to her chest. "Stob id," he said, urgently. "Can't breathe."

Vicky released him just as suddenly, and Mike flopped back down onto what he now recognized as the purple settee in the lounge reserved for passengers. The back of his head made contact with the wooden arm of the seat, and he whimpered as it made his head ache even more.

"Oh, Mike," Vicky wailed. She clutched his hand and threw herself at him again. His arms went around her automatically, even though his primary emotion was amazement. He and Vicky had always been close, but she wasn't given to these extravagant displays of distress and concern. 

This mystery was solved when Vicky, under cover of her vehement embrace, turned her head to whisper softly in his ear. "They're searching the passenger quarters," she murmured. "They marched us all in here about a quarter of an hour ago. I was pretending to cry, but I overheard the one in the hat say to start searching our cabins. There are two who seem to be in charge, the one by the door and the man in the hat. The one in the hat was the one who hit you."

Patting her shoulders and mentally revising his estimates of Vicky's acting skills upwards (with a mental note to be alarmed by this later), Mike used the cover of her apparent distress to glance around he room. There were six other passengers aboard the ship, and although Mike had only met them once before he'd succumbed to seasickness, he at least recognized them all. An older couple, the Blenkinsops, who had introduced themselves as some kind of missionaries, were holding hands and appeared to be praying as they sat on a wooden settle in one corner. They were accompanied by a mouse of a woman with a pinched and sour expression, said to be a widowed companion of Mrs. Blenkinsop, a Mrs James. She was glaring at Mike and Vicky from a hard wooden chair in the same corner. He smiled back weakly and patted Vicky's shoulder in what he hoped appeared to be a soothing and gentlemanly way.

On the other side of the room, Mr Johnson was seated at a small table with his son, Benjamin. They were silent and anxious, the elder Johnson sweating profusely and watching the pirate in the doorway with ill-concealed fear, while his son held a bloodied cloth to a shallow cut on his forehead. They were merchants, Mike vaguely recalled, embarking on this journey in order to establish a trading venture between their concerns in England and suppliers in her northerly colonies. Like the Blenkinsops they seemed cowed and frightened.

The final passenger was seated at his ease in the room's sole armchair, his long legs stretched out towards the fire. He'd introduced himself as Mark Weatherby, and he affected the airs of a gentleman of leisure, although to Mike's eyes he appeared to have the physique of a sportsman rather than an idler. However, not all of Vicky's wiles had induced him to make free with information about himself, she'd informed Mike at length on one of her daily visits to his sickbed. Of them all, Mike judged him the most likely to attempt something rash. Weatherby too was watching the pirate who guarded the door, although his face communicated nothing of his feelings.

Mike glanced that way too. The pirate was young and surprisingly clean-looking, Mike decided, with a tumbled mane of dark hair, far longer than was fashionable, and hazel eyes. He was dressed in trousers and a loose shirt, and a workmanlike sword hung from his belt alongside a pistol. Even as Mike's aching head grappled with the incongruence of a pirate in the midst of this thoroughly respectable company, the pirate looked over and caught Mike staring at him. He hand curled lightly around the pommel of his sword, but despite this overt aggression he did nothing but raise one eyebrow at Mike.

Looking away hastily, Mike turned back to Vicky, whose artistic sobbing was petering out. "There, there," he murmured, just loud enough for people in the room to hear. "Were you injured, are you all right?"

Vicky sat up, and hid her dry eyes immediately in a lacy handkerchief. "Some oaf threw my parasol overboard," she said, indignantly. "But I am otherwise unharmed. Would that I could say the same of you!"

Mike grimaced when he abruptly became the cynosure of all eyes. "I am fine," he said, and swung his legs down so that he was seated properly on the sofa. His head immediately began to pound with pain, but he gritted his teeth and tried to ignore it.

"The pirate with the hat had to _carry_ you," Vicky said, dramatically. "After you fainted, I mean. He carried you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes."

The rest of the room seemed to find this a matter of comic relief, and a murmur of muted amusement rippled around the room. Even the pirate's lips twitched.

"I did not faint," Mike protested, even though raising his voice made his head ache still more. "I was struck in the head."

Weatherby sneered at him. "By your sister's parasol, no doubt," he said, and Benjamin snorted with laughter.

"Well, it seems you fared no better!" Mike retorted, stung. "I see you are incarcerated in here, just like us."

Weatherby sneered again and stood up to pace. The pirate shifted at his position by the door, his hand dropping suggestively to the butt of his gun this time. "Sit down," he ordered, brusquely. Mike caught Vicky's hand in his, alert to the possibility of conflict and ready to push her floor and safety should bullets start flying.

For a moment it looked like Weatherby might challenge the pirate, but a thump in the corridor outside seemed to remind him that this single fight would not win him freedom, afloat as they were on a small boat in the Atlantic currently swarming with the villainous crew of the attacking boat. Disgruntled, he threw himself into the armchair again.

The pirate settled again after a moment, his hand shifting away from his gun by degrees. The other passengers relaxed imperceptibly.

Long minutes spun out, and Mike's head began to ache more and more fiercely even as other parts of his anatomy began to check in with their own complaints. A scrape on his elbow felt hot and gritty and he could feel sundry bumps and bruises all over his torso, probably resulting from his descent into the fray to reach Vicky. He also began to feel increasingly uneasy about his stomach which, quiescent during the exciting events of the last hour or so, was reminding him now that his seasickness had yet to subside.

Just as he was starting to think longingly of the bucket that had been his constant companion for days, the door to the lounge was flung open and a pirate stalked in. He was dressed in tight black trousers and a black shirt that lay open on his chest, and carried a black tricorn hat in one hand adorned with a white feather. Like his crewman, he wore his dark hair untidy and longer than was the norm, curling over the collar of his shirt. On one hand he wore a large emerald ring.

The passengers of the Louisa had all jumped in fright when he entered the room, and he stared at them now impassively. Weatherby rose to his feet and retreated towards the writing desk in one corner of the room.

"Have they been any trouble?" he asked, his voice far more cultured than Mike had ever expected of a pirate.

The pirate who had been guarding the door shook his head. "The one you hit woke up," he offered. 

Mike shrank back in his seat when the pirate with the hat turned to look at him. Vicky, of course, just glared back at the newcomer, her chin lifting pugnaciously. 

"Hmmm," the pirate said. He turned to their guard. "Our search is completed and we have taken what we want. I've locked the crew in their quarters and ordered our men back to our ship. We have but to lock these fine people in this room, and we can be away. I am sure someone will find a way out before the boat drifts too far from her course."

He turned to leave, and in that instant of distraction, Weatherby threw himself into action. He flung himself from his position by desk towards the pirate with the hat, a silver letter opener held like a dagger in his hand. Mike caught Vicky's hand and pulled her behind him, shielding her as best he could from possible bullets despite her annoyed complaints. These were almost lost in the gasps and exclamations of the other passengers.

"Watch out!" their guard cried, and the pirate dropped his feathered hat and turned to defend himself. He caught Weatherby's arm as it was raised to plunge the knife into his heart. The two men struggled violently, Weatherby trying to force the pirate to release his hold on his arm. The guard, who had been knocked off-balance by the fray, finally found his feet again, and resolved the dispute by placing his gun to Weatherby's head. He stilled immediately, the rapid rise and fall of his chest his only movement.

"Let go of the knife and go sit down where you were before," the guard said, menacingly, and Weatherby opened his hand, allowing the knife to fall to the floor. The guard pirate signalled for him to move away, and Weatherby stepped back reluctantly, his face distorted by a scowl. 

"You couldn't deal with that one? Am I the only _man_ in the room?" he said angrily to the other passengers as he resumed his seat in the armchair. The younger Johnson had half-risen from his seat, but now he sank back down, his face flaming, as Weatherby sneered at him. The Reverend Blenkinsop clutched at his wife's hand as she sobbed at this fresh outburst of violence.

Mike noticed Weatherby did not even glance his way. His own manly achievements were too obviously lacking to even consider, he thought, wryly. Vicky poked him hard in the shoulder, and he reluctantly released her so that she could see what was going on.

The second pirate meanwhile bent to pick up his hat, dusting it off carefully before placing it back on his head. "It seems we may need a hostage for good behaviour," he said, his voice unmoved despite his brush with violence. "And perhaps for profit too. Some blabbermouth on the crew let it slip that our fainter and his sister here might be worth something."

Vicky gasped. "We're not!" she said, instantly. "We're without worth, ask anyone! No-one would pay a penny for us, would they, Mike?"

Mike shook his head mutely.

"That’s not what the crew say," the pirate said, blandly, settling his hat a little more rakishly. "And who am I more likely to believe just now, do you think? No, I think you'll fetch a pretty price in ransom."

The guard pirate smirked at Vicky, who made a disgusted noise. "And if her relatives don't want her, we can always keep her," he said, with a leer. "She's a pretty little thing. Come here, girl."

Vicky's body stiffened, and she glanced at Mike desperately. The pirate beckoned to her again with the hand that did not hold the gun. Finally, with a great deal of reluctance, Mike stood up beside her, and they inched across the room together towards the pirate pair. Vicky's hand squeezed his tightly in what he hoped was not some kind of secret message. He'd never been good at decoding her clandestine communications. He did not have long to wonder about it. They had no sooner approached the door when the pirates reached out and caught them. The guard pirate soon captured Vicky, wrapping an arm around her waist and still keeping his gun trained on the other passengers while the pirate with the hat caught Mike in a chokehold. There was a gasp from the other passengers, Mrs Blenkinsop sobbing out Vicky's name. Mike remembered that she had been kind to Vicky when she too had suffered from seasickness in the first days of the voyage. Vicky's eyes, when he glanced in her direction, were huge with fear.

Weatherby stirred in his seat, and the guard pirate turned his pistol on him. "Don't move," he said, threateningly, as he and Mike's captor began to step backwards towards the door. 

Vicky caught Mike's eye, and he could see she was about to try something very unwise. "Don't worry, Victoria," he said, urgently, "Uncle Randall will pay, I am sure."

Vicky stilled in her tracks and stared at him. After a moment, she seemed to relax, and permitted her captor to drag them away, although with a great show of reluctance.

Once they were out of the lounge, the guard pirate slammed the door shut, and locked it hastily. 

"The doors will not hold the crew for long, and we have dallied long enough with all these dramatics," the pirate with the hat said, as he pushed Mike along the corridor rapidly. "We must go."

Behind him, Mike heard Vicky make a small pained noise, and half-turned to look at her. "No time, no time," said the pirate, and he shoved Mike roughly up the nearest ladder. For the first time, Mike became away of a distant thudding noise, presumably the ship's crew battering at the doors that imprisoned them. 

"Cast off!" the guard pirate called, as he too emerged up the ladder, towing Vicky, protesting violently, behind him. "Cast off!"

There was a flurry of motion on the pirate ship, and the ropes that held the boats together began to loosen and then drop away. The pirates ran over to two ropes that hung from the masts of their boat. "Hold on!" the guard pirate said, grabbing Vicky by the waist. He swung across the widening gap between the boats with Vicky held close in one arm. Mike heard her shriek of fright as they landed roughly on the other deck.

The pirate with the hat slung an arm around Mike's waist, pulling Mike tight into his body. "Trust me," he said, softly, into Mike's ear, and grabbing the rope, he flung them over the perilous waters of the ocean towards the dubious safety of the pirate ship.

No sooner had they landed on the deck of the pirate ship but the pirate in the hat released Mike abruptly and turned away to call orders to his men. "Cast off!" he shouted. "Raise the sails! Quickly now!"

The pirates on the deck, who had paused in their work to stare in apparent bewilderment at Mike and Vicky, immediately began to hurry about their duties. In a trice, the air filled with the sound of sailcloth flapping and then filling with air, the hiss of rope over wood and the curses of men working to rig the boat as quickly and efficiently as possible. Within moments, yards had opened up between the pirate vessel and the Louisa.

"What is going on?" Vicky demanded, even as the timbers of the boat creaked and settled as the pirate ship got underway. "I demand to know what is happening right now. Who are these people? Why did you want us to go with them? What is _happening_?"

Mike just stared at her, at a loss for words. He felt suddenly hot and dizzy, the roll and yaw of the boat triggering instant intestinal distress once again. He dipped his hand automatically into his waistcoat pocket to check that his pocket-watch had not been lost in all the excitement. His fingers closed about it for comfort.

Vicky did not take his evident distraction well. "Mike," she said, a shrill harrying note entering her voice. "If you do not tell me what is going on _right now_ I will start screaming, and I will not _stop_ screaming until you tell me, or I become mute. And you know how resilient my vocal chords are."

"They do seem in remarkable condition," agreed the guard pirate, who had turned away to watch the men at work with a critical eye. He turned to look at her, his expression not noticeably less threatening.

Vicky glared at him, and Mike momentarily found himself in sympathy with his distant, despised uncle. It could be no easy task having confined in one's peaceful, rural home the sort of female who thought nothing of glaring daggers at apparently felonious pirates who had kidnapped her with possibly evil intent. Rather like caging a tiger in a rabbit hutch, Mike mused. He put his hand to his forehead, which was hot, even though he'd now begun to shiver in the cool breeze created by their movement.

"To be honest," the guard pirate continued, apparently unmoved by Vicky's scathing glance. "I have no idea why we have you. It's all very well saying we're going to ransom you, but I've no very good idea how one would go about it."

He smiled a surprisingly attractive smile at them both. Vicky's expression grew yet darker. "What do you mean, you don't know how to ransom us?" she shouted, furiously.

"We don't need to. We're not going to ransom you," the pirate in the hat broke in, reappearing in their midst. 

Vicky shrieked with rage and stamped her foot. Pirates all over the ship came to a halt and stared at their little group still gathered on the deck where they had landed. The pirate in the hat waved a peremptory hand at them, and they leapt back to their work. 

"That's really remarkable for a petite woman," he said, when her scream finally petered out. "I always thought Mike was exaggerating when he described your lung capacity, but I see he was, if anything, understating the matter."

He turned to Mike, and with a shade of reproach in his voice added: "Really, Mike, I feel you could have given me more adequate warning. I would have stuffed rags in my ears had I known."

"To be fair, she has never been quite this vexed with me before," Mike said, wincing when Vicky turned her glare upon him. 

"Mike!" she shouted, turning her glare upon him. Mike winced, preparing to be roasted in the fire of her anger. Suddenly, though, she paused, visibly drawn up short as the conversation registered with her. "Wait, you _know_ him?"

Mike glanced over at the pirate in the hat, who inclined his head. "I…" he began and then stopped. While it was certainly true that an explanation of this man were invariably complicated and difficult to formulate in a manner that left him with some appearance of sanity, on this occasion it was not the difficulty of putting together a coherent story that stopped him. A horrible, shivery heat swept over him again, and the world seemed to whirl about him in a particularly nauseating manner. He reached out a groping hand, catching the pirate's arm. 

A tiny frown creased the pirate's brow. "Mike?" he said, his arm moving to support Mike, whose legs seemed to be buckling in ways the human anatomy was ill-suited to.

"I'm terribly sorry, Rudy," Mike said, desperately.

"What's he sorry for?" the guard pirate began, also confused, but Mike, by that point, was too busy throwing up over Rudy's impeccable boots to notice.

* * * 

Time passed after that in something of a blur of misery for Mike. He was vaguely aware of being carted unceremoniously off the deck, but was too grateful for his subsequent repositioning on a soft, comfortable surface to take any great notice of exactly where he was carried _to_. He noticed vaguely that he was separated from Vicky, but he couldn't quite bring himself to get up and go in search of her, no matter

He only revived slightly when he was assisted out of his coat and under a blanket, and a warm, wet towel was swiped gently over his sweating brow. "Thank you," he said, rather feebly, opening his eyes so he could smile at whoever was providing this comfort.

Rudy doffed his hat and his jacket as well his boots, and was seated on the side of his bed. "Think nothing of it," he said, with great courtesy and little expression. "I will be sure to note it among the list of many favours you owe me."

Mike laughed, but then winced when it jarred his aching head. "I am sure you will."

Rudy had just opened his mouth to say something, when a soft tap was heard at the door. "Come in," he called.

The door was flung open, and Vicky stalked in, her arms crossed across her chest and her face contorted in an angry pout. " _I_ would have just walked in," she said. "But your henchman made me knock."

"Henchman!" said the guard pirate, coming into the room behind her and closing the door. "A wonderful turn of phrase! Rudy, may I introduce myself as your henchman in future?"

"Only if you actually hench, Jeff," Rudy responded. "Otherwise being my brother will have to suffice."

"I am glad you find this all so amusing," Vicky said, so shrilly that Mike half sat-up, recognizing the depth of her fright. "Just who exactly are you? And how do you know Mike? And why have you kidnapped us? And what…?"

Rudy pressed Mike, protesting, back down to the bed with one hand, and raised the other in a gesture to Vicky to stop. "I understand you are alarmed, and that these are very trying circumstances," he said, with unruffled calm, "But your brother is rather ill and moving around will only make him demonstrate that again in unpleasant ways. I only have so many pairs of boots and my crew cannot be spared to polish them."

Jeff snorted, then looked rather chagrined when this drew Vicky's ire. "Will you have a seat?" he said, and gestured to a chair positioned next to a small writing desk.

Vicky glanced at Mike, obviously torn. "It's all right, Vicky," he said, rather feebly. "Or, I think it is." He couldn't stop himself from glancing at Rudy for confirmation. Rudy inclined his head again. 

"It is," he confirmed.

Slowly, after a long glance between Rudy and Mike, Vicky moved over to the chair and sat down. Mike sighed, and subsided once more onto the bed. Jeff leaned back against the door and folded his arms. Rudy wrung out the cloth he was holding and wiped it carefully across Mike's forehead again before stepping away to assume a seat in the large armchair in the centre of the room.

Mike smiled at Vicky, who was looking thoughtfully at Rudy, her lips pursed. "Rudy," she said musingly. "I have heard that name before. It is not so very common."

"Not very, no," Rudy said, blandly.

Mike rolled his eyes, and then regretted it when it made his head thump. "Remember the summer Father went to Greece, after Mama died?" he asked Vicky. "Madness, of course, to go to Greece in August, but he insisted."

Vicky nodded. "He shipped me off to Great Aunt Ermaline in York," she said, with a moue of disgust. "Nineteen cats and a wardrobe full of hats made out of dead birds."

Jeff snorted, and she shot him a quelling glance. He subsided with a smirk.

"And he left me in school in Harrogate for the summer," Mike murmured. He shivered, and tugged the blanket more tightly around his shoulders. "They did a sort of summer thing, with some lessons but more sports and things. It was perfectly dreadful."

Vicky frowned at him. "This does not seem the right time to be reminiscing about your schooldays," she said.

"That was where I met Rudy," Mike said, wearily. "I probably mentioned him in my letters. We tried to escape from the school together on multiple occasions."

Vicky looked skeptical. "You met years ago at a summer school in Harrogate, so you decided to kidnap us today?" she asked Rudy. "Forgive me, but that seems quite mad."

Jeff laughed. "Everything Rudy does seems quite mad," he said to Vicky, with a confiding air.

"It's one of my many charms," Rudy said, tonelessly.

"Really," said Vicky, sounding unflatteringly dubious.

"We stayed in touch, off and on. A few letters, and sometimes we'd be in York or Manchester at the same time," Mike said. "Though not for… it must be two years. Since…"

He stopped. Rudy stared at him impassively. Mike hurried on. "Well, be that as it may, after my last letter was returned unopened I lost touch. I had no idea where Rudy was until today."

He grinned at Rudy, aware it was not one of his better efforts. "I would not have guessed piracy, although now that I have seen it I must confess I am not altogether surprised."

Rudy looked slightly pleased by this accolade. 

"And I am Rudy's brother, Jeffrey," Jeff said, breaking in what he clearly thought was his most charming grin. "The younger and more charming of the Miller brothers, of course."

Vicky eyed him askance, and harrumphed in a manner alarmingly reminiscent of Mike's uncle. "If you had a moustache," he said, feeling rather dazed and disconnected. "You'd look just like Uncle Ralph. Or a walrus."

Rudy narrowed his eyes. "You said on the _Louisa_ that your uncle's name was Randall."

"Randall was my mother's younger brother," Vicky said. "He died more than ten years ago. He used to tell us that it was important for brothers and sisters to trust and love one another. His family cast my mother off, you see, but he stayed in touch with her. That is how I knew to allow you to kidnap us."

"Allow?" Jeff said, outraged. "You did not _allow_ us to kidnap you! We just stole you away."

Vicky looked scornful. "As if. Mike and I would have thought of a splendid plan to escape if we had wanted to."

"Then why hadn't you escaped already?" Jeff said, cuttingly. 

"Children, children," Rudy said. They subsided, although they continued to glare angrily at one another. "Jeff, if you want to title of henchman, I suggest you go and hench. Tell Pierre to set the course to the northwest. Then clear out your cabin for Miss Webster."

"What?" said Jeff, at the same time as Vicky exclaimed: "I am staying with Mike! And you have hardly answered any questions at all! Why are we here? What are you going to do with us?"

"Jeff," Rudy said, with a soft note of menace in his voice. Grumbling, Jeff flung open the door and left the cabin, slamming it closed again as departed. Mike jumped and then moaned as he jarred his aching head and set his stomach to rolling again. 

"As for you, Miss Webster," Rudy said, smoothly, "I am loath to expose you further to Mike's illness, and he urgently needs to rest. I will answer your questions later, when he is feeling more alert."

"It's just seasickness," Mike protested, weakly. 

"It is not," Rudy said, "You have a fever. You do not want Victoria to contract it, do you?"

Mike shook his head, and then regretted it. "No," he whispered.

"What if you become ill?" Vicky said, challengingly.

Rudy raised an eyebrow. "I don't have fevers," was all he said.

"Please, Vicky," Mike said, sighing, "I don't want you to be ill too."

Jeff opened the cabin door again. "Your cabin awaits," he said, sourly. "Follow me."

Vicky stood, but hesitated. "Please?" whispered Mike.

Reluctantly, she nodded. "I will go," she said, but then added: "For now."

"Excellent," Rudy said. He stood up politely as she swept from the room, and then, after an exchange of looks with his brother that Mike's fever-addled brain could not interpret, closed the door behind them.

He came back over to Mike, and folded back the blanket. Mike caught his hand. "She will be all right?" he said, urgently. "Promise me she will be safe. She is all that is left of my family except for my loathsome uncle."

Rudy urged him gently to a seated position. "She will be fine, Jeff will see to it," he said, almost soothingly.

Mike cast a searching glance at Rudy's face. "Thank you," he said. "It is good to see you again, Rudy."

"Likewise," Rudy said, disinterestedly, helping Mike out of his waistcoat.

Mike gritted his teeth against another wave of nausea. "Rudy," he started, and then he stopped. Rudy looked at him interrogatively. "I am sorry, but I am about to ruin another pair of your boots." 

If Mike hadn't known better, and been otherwise occupied at the time, he might have thought that there had been an actual expression on Rudy's face at that moment.

TO BE CONTINUED

When Mike woke again, he was warm and comfortable and tucked beneath light covers in a loose pair of pyjamas that he did not recognize. Although he felt rather better, perhaps because of the gallons weak tea and dry biscuits Rudy had forced upon him before he slept, it took him a long moment to recognize his surroundings.

The cabin was dim, lit by two candles. One flickered on a small table by the head of the bed on which he lay. The other cast a small pool of light on Rudy, seated at the desk, scratching out neat lines of text in a leather-bound notebook. He had changed his clothes since Mike last opened his eyes, and in the candlelight, his skin looked golden against his open-throated white shirt. 

Mike stared at Rudy's profile. It was curious, he mused, how he had some friends that he would see almost daily, who were as open and forthright as a man could be, and yet he never grew more than passingly familiar with their moods. With Rudy, years could pass between their meetings and it would still only take a moment for Mike to remember how to decode the tiny changes in his expression that gave away his thoughts. Just now, he thought, Rudy's almost imperceptible frown suggested he was quite displeased.

Still feeling rather hot and confused, Mike spoke. "I'm sorry," he said, rather meekly. 

"Do you need a bucket?" Rudy asked, without any apparent surprise at Mike's alertness. The frown vanished as he glanced over at Mike. "I ask only because you seem to preface every bout of illness with an apology."

"No," said Mike, giving the subject some consideration. "I think if I don't move I will be all right."

"Then by all means, remain stationary," Rudy said, coolly. He dipped his pen in the ink well and began a new line of text. 

Mike nodded, and snuggled down further into his pillow. As he moved, he caught a glint of light from the corner of his eye. His golden pocket-watch lay on the table beside the candle. He reached out to pick it up, wrapping the chain around his wrist and closing his fist around it. Rudy glanced over, one eyebrow raised. Mike tucked his hand back under the blankets and attempted a smile. "Vicky?" he asked. 

"She is about somewhere," Rudy said. "She sat with you for a while, but I thought it best to let you sleep. She is rather too stimulating as company when one is under the weather, I would think."

Mike chuckled. "She is not one for the sick-room," he agreed. "She is too energetic. "

Rudy hummed noncommittally, and the silence stretched out. Mike watched the hypnotic movement of pen over paper for long moments before finally dropping off to sleep again. 

Time seemed to pass after that in a peculiar series of fits and starts. When he next opened his eyes, hoping to escape a particularly distressing nightmare involving an unknown villain tying him up and leaving him to be nibbled to death by mice, it was to find Rudy sitting beside him on the bed. A cool cloth was wiped across his face, while Rudy murmured something that Mike hazily thought might be intended as comfort.

He closed his eyes again. Although it seemed to him like he had only blinked, when he opened them again the scene had entirely changed. Jeff and Rudy stood near the door of the cabin, caught up in a low-voiced conversation that made little sense to Mike. 

"… searched everything!" Jeff was saying, urgently. "Twice. It was not there!"

"Look again," Rudy replied. "It has to be there."

"It isn't!" Jeff said. "Look again yourself, if you want, but I am telling you _it is not there!_ "

Rudy stared at him. "Then we need to go to Plan B," he said.

Jeff seemed to recoil. "It's too risky," he said. "Especially with these two on board. If they are seen…"

He trailed off meaningfully, glancing over at Mike, who hastily closed his eyes again. "That is a chance we will have to take," Rudy said, with a note of finality in his voice. Jeff made a small impatient noise, but was silenced, Mike had no doubt, by a quelling eyebrow. After a moment, Rudy continued: "Tell me, what are the winds like? Will we make harbour as planned? I have not yet been abovedeck this watch."

Jeff immediately began a hushed recital of the prevailing weather conditions, and Mike, lulled by the incomprehensible flow of words and by the darkness behind his eyelids, slept again. 

His next awakening was even more confusing. 

"… if you don't let me in, I shall scream!" Vicky was saying loudly. Mike glanced automatically, and rather anxiously, around the room. His head ached a great deal less than it had for days, but he still didn't feel equal to Vicky's ear-shattering shriek. To his bewilderment, though, he was alone in the cabin. The room was still dim, but the chink of light glowing around the covered port-hole suggested it was daylight outside. The candle next to his bed had been snuffed out, and his pocket-watch once more lay next to it.

A thump outside the door resolved his confusion. Vicky was evidently in the passageway outside. 

"You always threaten to scream and stamp your feet," Mike heard Jeff say. He sounded curious rather than alarmed. "It's not a very effective threat when one is on a ship entirely surrounded by one's captors you know. Personally, I'd try to think of something bett--- oof!"

There was a brief scuffling noise, and then a moan of pain. The door to Mike's cabin was flung open and Vicky stepped inside, a self-satisfied expression on her face. In the instant before she closed the door again, Mike could see Jeff curled on the floor, hands cupping a rather tender organ. He winced sympathetically.

"Oh, Mike," Vicky said, her expression changing to one of great distress. "Do you feel better? Oh, you are so pale! And thin! My poor brother!"

Mike smiled at her reassuringly and struggled to sit upright. Vicky rushed over to perch on the bed beside him and throw her arms around him. He patted her back weakly for a moment or two, until she disengaged herself from him and sat back. 

"And you smell," Vicky said, much more prosaically, wrinkling her nose at him.

Mike sighed. "I am sorry my company is so unpleasant," he said, dryly, and she grinned at him.

"I will forgive you this once, although I will suggest to Rudy that he arrange for a bath for you," she said.

"Rudy?" Mike asked, raising his eyebrows at her.

Vicky stared at him in horror. "Oh dear!" she said, "You don't remember? We are on his ship. He and his wretched brother kidnapped us."

She jumped up and paced up and down a little, muttering to herself about his brain having been addled by his illness.

"No, no," Mike interjected hastily, "I remember. I meant only, when did you become so familiar with him?"

Vicky looked relieved, and waved this query away. "It's ridiculous to try to maintain the formalities when one is aboard a pirate ship," she said, wandering over to Rudy's desk and flipping casually through the papers lying there. "And I refuse to call either of them Captain or First Mate, or whatever the nautical office they hold might be. Beside, they have never told me their family name."

"One must preserve some mystery," Rudy said, from the doorway. Vicky snatched her hand away from the pages she'd been turning over. Rudy stepped over his brother, still lying unhappily on the floor across the threshold, and came into the room. "I see you dispensed with my brother's assistance."

Vicky sniffed haughtily. "He deserved it," she said. 

"No doubt," said Rudy. He closed the door on Jeff's profane rejoinder, and came over to Mike's bed, immediately reaching out to touch the back of his hand to Mike's forehead.

Mike smiled up at him. "I feel better. I should get up. Vicky says I smell," Mike said, but then spoiled his statement by yawning.

Rudy's left eyebrow twitched, signaling his amusement. "You do smell," he concurred, "But while your fever has broken, I think you would do better to rest."

Mike yawned again, then nodded sleepily. Rudy helped him slide back down to horizontal, and Mike let his eyelids droop.

"Should he be sleeping so much?" Vicky said anxiously from somewhere near his ankle. "I don't recall him ever spending so much time asleep, not even when we had chicken pox together as children."

"He has had a fever and seasickness all at once. Plus I believe he has been under some considerable emotional strain for some months. Together these would lay any man low," Rudy said, in what passed for a soothing tone for him. His voice moved away, and there was the sound of the door opening. "Another day and he will be much recovered. In the meantime, I suggest you allow my brother to escort you elsewhere, and leave him to rest."

"I don't want to escort her," Jeff protested. "She kneed me in the… in a place where ladies oughtn't to know to knee a man!"

Vicky sniffed, and Mike struggled to open his eyes again. "I taught her that," he said, with some pride.

"Thank you ever so," Jeff said, bitterly. Vicky crossed her arms and glared at Jeff, and Mike closed his eyes again during the sharp exchange of words that followed. He half-woke again when Vicky, with another disparaging sniff, kissed his forehead and then flounced out of the room. 

"I suggest you follow and eat humble pie," Rudy said to Jeff. 

"Pie? Don't let her cook," Mike protested urgently, forcing his eyelids to fully a quarter open. "It never ends well!"

Rudy turned to stare at him, his expression slightly nonplussed. "You're asleep," he told Mike, after a moment. "Shhh."

Mike subsided, and Jeff snickered. "He's funny. Will you keep him?"

Try as he might, Mike couldn't stay awake long enough to hear the answer.

~ * ~ * ~

In which we meet Rudy's pirate crew

Mike woke the next morning feeling almost entirely like himself. His head, miraculously, no longer pounded. His stomach no longer felt like it was momentarily about to revolt against its position in his anatomy. He didn't ache, he wasn’t hot, and the world no longer dipped and swirled alarmingly when he looked around the room. He stretched luxuriously in his narrow bunk, and made a mental note to ask Rudy for the recipe for the revolting herbal concoction he'd poured down Mike's throat a half dozen times in the last few days. 

Just as Mike was steeling himself to standing up, there was a tap at the door. "Come in!" he called, expecting it to be Rudy. Instead, the door was opened a few inches and a grizzled countenance peered through. An eye patch covered one eye.

"Be you ready for your bath, young master?" the pirate asked, and Mike, astonished, could do no more than nod.

The door was pushed opened fully, and the pirate stumped in, leaning heavily on a cane to support his wooden leg. A child of no more than twelve followed him, carrying a shallow tin bath. "Not much for baths," the pirate said. "I had to borrow this one here from women's country."

The boy set down the bath in the middle of the room and scampered out again.

"I…" said Mike, and then, unequal to the task of making sense of this, held out his hand. "Hello, I'm Michael Webster."

The pirate held out his hook. "Chester," he said, and Mike gingerly shook hands with him. "Though there's some as call me Lucky, on account of how I aren't, you see?"

"I see," said Mike, hesitantly. The pirate did look in terrible condition. Apart from his hook, wooden leg and eye patch, every visible inch of his skin was either scarred or tattooed. There was even a large scar across his bald head. While Mike took in his singular appearance, a small mouse ran out of Chester's sleeve and up onto his shoulder, where it sat, whiskers quivering, and stared at Mike. The wear to that particular patch of the pirate's tattered jacket suggested that this was the mouse's favourite perch.

"This is my mouse, Chester," Chester the pirate said. "I call them all Chester because it's easier to remember that way."

"I see," said Mike, who saw very little.

"Arrr," said Chester, meditatively. The boy came in carrying a heavy urn of water, steaming gently, and poured into the bath. "And this here is Smiler."

Smiler beamed toothily at Mike as his water can emptied and scampered out again.

"So," said Chester, "Scuttlebutt has it that you're a friend of the Captain."

"I… Yes," Mike said, cautiously. "We knew one another in England. He wasn't a pirate then, of course."

"Arrr, so the story is," said Chester, thoughtfully. "It's a good pirate he is, even if he weren't born to the pirating like me."

Smiler came in with a second urn of water and poured it in to the bath, which was beginning to fill up respectably. He grinned again at Mike, and exited with haste. Mike felt tired just watching him.

"Er. Has he been your captain long?" Mike asked, when the silence had stretched out. 

Chester scratched his chin thoughtfully with his hook. The mouse's whiskers twitched as if he too were thinking about it. Finally, the mouse squeaked and the pirate nodded. " Aye, a twelvemonth or so," Chester said. "I was the first man to come aboard, arr. Been a pirate these fifty years or more, since I was young Smiler's age myself."

Mike nodded. "Rudy.. the Captain was lucky to get a man of your experience," he offered, a little nervously. 

Chester puffed up a little with pride, and the mouse cleaned his whiskers self-importantly. "Arrr. I thought after me eye went, it would the last of my pirating days. These young whippersnappers as captain a pirate ship these days, they're as cruel as time to an old sea dog. A peg leg they'll accept, or an eye patch, or a hook, gladly they'll take a man with one infirmity, so long as he can hold his grog and read the winds. But have all three, and it's hard to find a man-jack among them who'll give you the time of day. And me, honourably wounded I was."

"Oh, um," Mike said, stepping back a little as Smiler came back in, this time staggering under the weight of two urns. "Battle wounds I take it?"

Chester shook his head. "Kitchen accident," he said, waving the hook, "I was galley chief on the good ship Bonecruncher, and there was a problem with a lobster. Arrr."

Mike blinked at him. "And the.. the eye?" he said, struggling to keep his voice even.

"That was the parrot, arrrr," said Chester. "The feathers made me sneeze, and it grew so unhappy with riding on my shoulder it gave me a right pecking."

The mouse squeaked disapprovingly. "That's right," Chester told it. "Lily-livered landlubbing feather-brain, it was."

Mike was grateful for the noise of the water being poured into the bath, which disguised his little choke of laughter. He cleared his throat. "And the leg?" he asked.

"Sharkbite," said Chester. Mike's jaw dropped in shock. "Arrr, just a joke. Pirates don't hold with that swimming nonsense. Me leg I lost crossing the street in Pirate Bay. Runaway sausage cart."

The mouse squeaked and twitched his nose as Mike stared at Chester.

Smiler set down the second urn. "Are you done, lad?" Chester asked. Smiler nodded, beaming at them again. "Then we'll leave this here gentleman to his bath. Smiler will wait for you outside the Captain's quarters, young sir, just knock when you're dressed, and he'll be bringing you to me, arrr."

"Right," said Mike, nervously. "And the Captain? He left no message for me?"

"Arrr!" said Chester, nodding. He began to pat his pockets carefully with his good hand. The mouse scampered down from his shoulder and back into his sleeve. "You're to join him on deck when you've washed, he said."

"Thank you!" Mike called after them, getting another "Arrr!" as the door closed behind his visitors.

* * * 

Mike felt even better after his bath. When he climbed out, he discovered his valise from the _Louisa_ standing at the bottom of the bed, and he quickly assumed his most comfortable trousers, shirt, and jacket slipping his pocket-watch into the trousers for safe keeping before pulling on his boots. He did wonder, for a moment, why he had been given someone else's pyjamas, when two pair of his own, fresh and laundered, lay in the top of his bag, but he did not dwell on it for long. He poked his head out of the door to find Smiler idling his time in the passageway with a game of jacks. He glanced up when Mike's door opened, and smiled widely at Mike and gathered up his toy.

"Do we go above decks now?" Mike asked, and Smiler nodded fervently.

"Do I need to do anything about my bath?" Mike asked, as he turned to close the door behind him. Smiler shook his head, and pointed at himself. "You'll do it?"

Smiler nodded again, and Mike smiled at him. "Thank you."

Smiler shrugged, and then motioned Mike to follow him. The passageway was quite narrow, with doors to either side, each marked with a small sign. _First Mate_ , read one, and _Map Room_ another proclaimed. One was reinforced with an immense padlock and six large locking bolts. _Treasury_ , Mike read as he passed that door.

Smiler scampered up a short ladder, Mike following more slowly behind, finding his legs strangely weak after his long bout of illness. Suddenly, though, they were on deck, and Mike took a long, deep breath of fresh salty air, turning his face towards the sun.

He looked down only when he felt a tug on his trousers. Smiler grinned at up him, and then shoved him gently out of the way so that another pirate could pass.

"'Scuse me matey," the pirate said, "Smiler, take yon gentleman to the Captain."

Smiler nodded, and catching Mike's hand dragged him towards a raised section of the deck. Mike squinted up, and caught a glimpse of Rudy silhouetted against the son, with Chester beside him.

"Ahoy there," Chester called down. "Send him up here, young Smiler."

Smiler pointed to the ladder and with another shove, propelled Mike in that direction. "Thank you!" Mike called after him as he scampered away. Smiler turned and waved and grinned at him toothily, almost cannoning into a pirate carrying a large rope over his shoulder as he did so. Mike climbed the ladder up to where Rudy stood. 

"Mike," Rudy said laconically in greeting. He glanced over Mike's person critically. "You seem cleaner."

"I am, thank you," Mike said, cheerfully. "I didn’t know pirates took baths."

"Captain's orders. Everyone is to wash regularly," Chester interjected. "Don't hold with baths myself, too much like swimming. I just throws a bucket of salty water over myself like the rest of the crew. Chester don't like it though. Hides in my boot untilI'm done."

The mouse, which was seated in its usual position, groomed its whiskers in apparent demonstration of its own grooming habits.

Mike turned to look at Rudy, longing to laugh. "You mandate baths?" he asked.

Rudy just raised an eyebrow. "Personal hygiene is important to me. It's too difficult to stand consistently downwind of those who bathe infrequently when one is aboard a small vessel like the _Beaver_ here."

Mike blinked at him. "The _Beaver_ ," he said, his lips quivering.

Rudy seemed to sigh. "Long story, best not to enquire," he said, dismissing the topic. "Your sister is also above decks, I believe receiving instruction on mending nets."

"Mending nets?" said Mike, astonished. "Why would she be mending nets?"

"She expressed an interest," Rudy said.

"Arrr. It's a poor pirate as can't mend his own fishing nets," said Chester, and the mouse squeaked affirmatively.

"She's not a pirate," Mike protested.

Chester shook his head sadly. "And it's a terrible waste of a piratical temperament that she's not," he said. The mouse nodded. "Ah well, if you've no need of me, Captain, I'll be seeing to the orders for the galley."

"Yes, thank you Chester, that will be all," Rudy said. Chester stumped away. Mike watched with fascination as he descended the ladders, negotiating it easily despite his many infirmities. He was assisted off the final rung by a swarthy looking fellow of villainous appearance, who slapped Chester on the back after helping him steady himself on the deck. 

Mike watched them go. "Um," he said, hesitantly.

Rudy was gazing fixedly through a folding telescope he had produced from a pocket, but he glanced away to look at Mike when he spoke. "Um," said Mike again, trying to find a way to make his question sound less accusatory. "Is my sister entirely safe on a ship full of pirates?"

Rudy stared at him. "Having met Victoria, I would hesitate to say she is safe in any environment," he said. "Her presence aboard the ship is rather akin to travelling with a large collection of unexploded and unstable ordnance."

"Well, yes," admitted Mike.

"I live in daily fear she will foment mutiny aboard my ship and am considering whether to carry about my person the essentials of survival, in case she should decide to send me packing," Rudy continued, blandly, and raised the telescope to his eye again. 

"Well, she's not _that_ bad," Mike said. Rudy turned an unimpressed eye upon him. "Well, perhaps she is. But nevertheless, she is the only woman aboard a vessel of thieves and murderers."

Rudy lowered the glass. "What makes you think she is the only woman aboard?" he asked.

Mike blinked at him. "She isn’t?"

Rudy shrugged and went back to gazing out at the horizon with his glass.

"Chester did say he acquired my bath from women's country," Mike said, thoughtfully. "I just thought that was some sort of piratical commentary on standards of hygiene."

"The women prefer to share cabins towards the prow," Rudy said, turning slightly to gaze in a slightly different direction. "The crew call it women's country."

Mike was struck by a thought. "Are they," he started, and then couldn't decide how to conclude his sentence. "That is. What is their function aboard the ship?"

Rudy lowered the glass once more. "Not what you are thinking," he said. He glanced down along the deck. "There, look, in the rigging, that's Diane."

Mike looked out to where Rudy was pointing and sure enough, the strong breeze blowing the pirate in question's shirt revealed a distinctly feminine figure when it flattened the fabric against her skin. "Oh, uh," Mike said, and found himself going pink. He looked hastily away from the pirate in her tight trousers, and down at the deck below.

A small, fussy looking man was wandering about the deck with a book in hand. Unlike the other pirates, who were for the most part dressed in the outermost extreme of casual attire, this pirate was wearing what appeared to be a suit. Only the nautically themed handkerchief in his pocket suggested his piratical affiliation. "And him?" Mike asked, nodding at the individual in question. 

"Horace," said Rudy, in a bored tone. "The ship's accounting clerk."

" _Accounting clerk_ ," said Mike, astonished.

"It appears that the most common cause of dissatisfaction among pirate crews is that financial affairs are too often left in the hands of either the captain, who has no claim to disinterestedness, or to an individual who struggles to count without the aid of his fingers and, if need be, other appendages," Rudy explained. "I therefore hired Horace. If asked, he can demonstrate an entire system of double-entry bookkeeping. The crew, it appears, believe that nothing so boring could ever be inaccurate."

Mike stared at him. "And is it?"

Rudy shrugged, and raised his glass once more. "As accurate as one can be when dividing various forms of illiquid booty," he said. 

Mike gave up the unequal struggle to understand Rudy's employment practices. Men who talked to mice, women, accountants. This was like no pirate ship Mike had ever heard of, but then nothing Rudy did was like anything Mike had ever heard of or seen before. It was insensibly comforting to discover that even as a pirate, Rudy eschewed the usual.

Mike squinted ahead into the horizon. "What has you so transfixed out there, anyway?" he asked, unable to see anything.

"Our immediate destination," Rudy said, tersely. He handed the telescope over to Mike. "Here, have a look."

Mike held the device to his eye, but despite his best efforts could see nothing. "What am I looking at?" he asked, after a frustrated minute. 

Rudy moved to stand behind him, one hand coming up to hold the telescope, the other gently turning Mike to look in the right direction. "There, look," he said, his breath puffing softly against Mike's neck. 

Mike caught his own breath, but then was distracted by a smudge on the distance horizon. "Oh wait," he said, excitedly, half-turning to look at Rudy. "I think I see it!"

Rudy looked at him, his eyes intent although his expression was calm.

"Land ahoy!" a voice suddenly called from the crow's nest. "Land ahoy!"

Rudy let his arms drop away from Mike abruptly, leaving the telescope with him. He took several steps away, leaned over the railing and began barking orders to the men below who scurried to do his bidding. 

Left alone, took a deep breath, and then raised the telescope to his eye again. Already the green blob seemed closer, and he could just see a glimpse of a mass of grey, brown and other colours he took to be a village of sorts on the shore. "Where are we going?" he asked, scanning along the coastline of the landmass.

Even as Rudy spoke, Mike suddenly caught sight of a flag flying at the tip of a promontory of land. It was the skull and cross bones. 

"Pirate Bay," said Rudy, softly.  
In which Mike is helpful

Mike spent the next couple of hours alternately squinting through Rudy's folding telescope or hanging over the railing trying to make out the details of the distant village when Rudy needed the telescope for his official business. On the main deck below, pirates scurried around on incomprehensible business, trimming the sails and climbing the rigging in what seemed to Mike a haphazard manner, yet which got a nod of approval from Rudy and later Chester when he clambered back onto the poop deck.

After a time, though, Mike became rather bored of their slow but steady progress towards the village. He was briefly distracted when a tremendous argument broke out on the deck below between Jeff and Vicky, the latter of whom was insisting she should be allowed to climb the rigging if she wanted while the former made increasingly imaginative threats about what he would do to her if she tried. Fortunately, before either of them could appeal to him for support -- and Mike knew himself to be sufficiently spineless where Vicky was concerned that he would acquiesce to almost any hare-brained scheme -- a second female pirate appeared and invited Vicky to come learn about the forward rigging. Vicky agreed cordially, sparing only a single poisonous look and a haughty sniff for Jeff, who threw his hands in the air in disgust and then hastened in the opposite direction. 

"Siblings," Rudy remarked, tonelessly, turning back from his low-voiced conversation with the helmsman. "Can't live with them, can't toss them overboard on a whim."

Mike laughed, and elbowed Rudy companionably when he came to stand next to Mike at the railing. "Are we almost there?" he asked, holding out a hand again for Rudy's telescope. Rudy handed it over silently. Mike peered hopefully off into the distance again, although he could make out no more details of the distant pirate village than he could a few minutes before. He sighed, and handed the telescope back to Rudy.

"It will take an hour, perhaps for us to come in to the port," Rudy returned, after a moment. "Once we are in the lee of the land, our speed will drop considerably."

"You sound frightfully knowledgeable," Mike remarked with a grin. "If only you had known so much during our escape attempts by water from school."

Rudy twitched an eyebrow at him. "Indeed," he said, smoothly. "Although as I recall, it was you who fell asleep so inopportunely in the dinghy we borrowed, and you who did not lash together the raft well enough."

"Oh, I am certain that is your recollection," Mike replied, "But may I remind you that I was not the only one who fell asleep, nor the only one charged with the seaworthiness of our craft."

"I believe your recent fever has disarranged your memory," Rudy said, with that sideways glance that Mike knew meant Rudy was amused. "I don't think your recollection can be relied upon at all in these matters."

Behind them, the helmsman choked on a laugh at this pronouncement, and Rudy's demeanour changed instantly. Turning to the man at the ship's wheel, he raised an eyebrow and asked: "Is there a reason we are several degrees off course?"

Rudy's tone was even, but whatever the helmsman heard in his voice had him gulping. "No sir, Captain, sir," and adjusting the wheel hastily.

Rudy turned back to Mike and stared at him for a long moment. Mike stared back. "Would you care to render me some slight assistance before we reach landfall?" Rudy said, finally. 

Mike blinked at him. "Um," he said, "Of course, if you wish for my help. Although I cannot claim to be an expert in any aspect of piracy."

Rudy shook his head. "It is not precisely a pirating matter," he said. "And it is not strictly me that you will be helping."

Mike looked at him curiously, but nodded anyway. "Anything, of course," he said. "You know you need only to ask."

Rudy's lips twitched at this, and he looked at Mike for another moment, before turning away to shout down over the railing: "Smiler! Take Mr Webster down to assist Horace, will you?"

"The accountant?" said Mike, as Smiler obediently came running towards the poop deck, and then stood, beaming, and gesturing to Mike to come down.

"Indeed," said Rudy. "It is my custom to settle with my crew before we reach landfall, and he is always complaining he has no-one to help with the filing and the accounts."

"Oh," said Mike, rather disappointedly. "Well, if it would help."

"It would," said Rudy.

Feeling rather crestfallen, but determined to live up to his promise to assist Rudy in whatever fashion he could, Mike descended from the poop deck and turned to find Smiler almost bouncing from foot to foot in apparent delight at seeing Mike. Mike greeted him politely, causing Smiler's grin to widen still further. When he turned back for a moment, Rudy was already gazing at the land ahead through his telescope, looking rather distant and aloof in his dashing pirate attire. Mike walked away resolutely.

"To Horace," he said, heartily, to Smiler, who nodded and began to direct him back towards the living quarters below deck. "Let us hope I remember how to do my sums!"

~ * ~ * ~

Horace, it transpired, was almost as delighted with Mike as Smiler, greeting him with great enthusiasm and agreeing immediately to call him Mike rather than the more formal Mr. Webster. He also waved away Mike's disclaimer that it had been some years since he had last performed any meaningful arithmetical operations. "Nonsense, dear boy," Horace said, adjusting his necktie. "I have the book-keeping quite _quite_ under control. It is the filing and ordering of papers that requires a second pair of hands. Chester helps sometimes, but alas, his eyesight is not what it once was, and the mice will nibble on the pages of my ledgers!"

As he spoke, Horace settled himself at a desk in the Treasury room that Mike had noticed before, and placed an immense bound volume in front of him. "Now," he said, handing Mike a sheaf of papers. "You have only to mark the name and the sum I tell you, and ensure that the pirate in question signs both his copy and the counter-sheet when he is given his coin. Or her coin, of course!"

Mike gazed in surprise at the notes he had been handed, each of which appeared to be a pre-prepared chit with a space for the name of the pirate and the sum he or she was owed. "You _can_ read?" Horace said, anxiously, apparently mistaking Mike's surprise for confusion.

"Oh, yes," said Mike, "I was just. Um. This seems very formal, for a pirate ship."

Horace adjusted his spectacles. "Well, yes. The Captain is the very essence of the modern pirate leader," he gushed, enthusiastically. "I had only to explain once, and he was quite quite taken with the idea of an ordered payment system. There was some little resistance among the crew at first, but now they find it entirely to their satisfaction."

He nodded fussily to himself, and then turned when there was a knock on the door. Jeff poked his head around. "You need the chest unlocking?" he said, nodding a greeting to Mike.

Horace waved him in. "Please," he said, and rose to his feet, moving towards a chest pushed against one wall, which was secured by a heavy padlock.

Jeff pulled a necklace from around his neck, and crouched to unlock the chest. "Are you feeling better, Mike?" he asked, as Horace withdrew a bag that jingled softly and then stepped back. 

"Yes, thank you," said Mike, faintly, as Jeff closed and locked the chest again. His polite answer was entirely rote, so shocked was he by the casual way that Jeff and Horace were treating the immense stash of gold and jewels that he had just observed.

"Excellent," said Jeff. "Perhaps you can keep your sister out of mischief, then?"

Mike blinked, and then shook himself slightly. "Um, I could try?" he said, unintentionally making the statement sound rather like a question. 

Jeff snorted, and then, with a nod to Horace, left the room, muttering something that sounded like " _Try_ , we can all try, much good might it do us."

The door closed behind him, and Mike slowly turned away to face Horace, who was counting out golden coins into small heaps on the desk. "Do sit down," Horace said. "There's a pen in the top drawer I believe, and if you will just ring that bell, Smiler will send in the first of the pirates."

Mike did as he was asked, ringing the bell once he'd located a pen and ink, and sharpened the nib to his satisfaction. Smiler immediately opened the door and admitted a group of about ten particularly villainous looking individuals. Their faces seemed stuck in a permanent sneer, many carried guns and knives about their person, and all of them looked like they could snap Mike in two without a thought. He quailed inwardly, and wondered whether how much damage he could inflict with his sharpened pen. 

To his astonishment though, Horace immediately took charge, apparently unfazed by the appearance of the men who had entered the room. "Form an orderly queue, if you please!" he said, peremptorily, and immediately the pirates shuffled around until they were in a neat line. 

"Reginald the Blackguard, Senior," Horace called. 

An older man stepped forward immediately. "Arrr," he said.

"Ah yes, five gold coins, for you," Horace said, counting them out neatly. "Mike, the chit, please?"

"Oh, yes," said Mike, hastily scrawling the pirate's name and the sum of money to be paid in the appropriate spaces on the form.

The pirate took the pen offered by Horace and signed a rough X across the bottom of the page, before accepting the coins. "Don't go stealing my spare pen, now!" Horace said, roguishly, and the pirate handed it back hastily.

"Thank you, now let us see, aha," Horace muttered, making neat marks in his ledger. "Ah yes, Reginald the Blackguard, Junior."

A younger copy of the first pirate stepped forward. "Arrr!" he said.

"Only four coins for you," Horace said, severely, "After that disgraceful fight. And you from such an esteemed pirating family!"

The pirate looked ashamed, shuffling his feet under Horace's and his father's disapproving gaze. "Arrr," he said, remorsefully, signing the paper Mike handed him.

His father clipped his ear as he stepped back. "Ye can explain to your mother why she's a coin short," Reginald Senior said, grimly. Reginald Junior looked even more stricken and slunk shame-faced into a corner while Horace called the remainder of the pirates one at a time, doling out coin and explanations for why it was less or more than usual. Eventually, all of the pirates had been paid, and Smiler came to usher them out and allow a second group to enter the room. Mike was kept busy scrawling out names and sums, until his hand was aching from the effort.

It was a good way to get to know Rudy's crew, though, Mike decided as he filled in yet another form (Thomas the Terrible, six gold coins, the extra awarded for initiative shown in the matter of the sloop rigging). They were, to a pirate, villainous of appearance and tough as old boots. The women alone looked capable of snapping Mike's spine in several places if he so much as looked at them in a manner they disliked. However, they were also surprisingly loyal, not making a word of complaint when pay was docked over infringements of the rules, and puffing up with pride if the Captain's name was associated with some particular additional payment. Mike, whose steadfast loyalty to Rudy had occasioned some disparaging comment not only back at school in Harrogate but in the clubs and drinking places they had frequented as young men, felt a warm glow of pride at how effectively Rudy commanded these admittedly ruffianly individuals. 

Finally, the parade of pirates drew to a close, and only three more remained to be paid. Mike handed a form to Chester while Horace solemnly counted out his eight pieces of gold, and one piece of cheese cut to the same shape as a coin for Chester the mouse. Chester stumped away with a pleased expression, while the mouse vanished with its prize into his left boot. Mike winced, and tried not to think about the state of Chester's socks.

He took up his pen again in preparation for the next pirate.

"Victoria Webster!" Horace called, counting out two cois.

Mike started. "Vicky?" he said, looking up from his pile of paper. "Vicky!"

"Here!" said Vicky, excitedly.

Mike stared open-mouthed at her attire. It was no wonder he hadn't noticed her entrance. She was dressed in breeches and a full white shirt, and her curly hair was confined beneath a black bandana emblazoned with the skull and crossbones. "Victoria!" he squeaked.

"What?" Vicky said, crossly. "I said I'm here!"

"What are you _wearing_?" Mike spluttered, still staring at her. "Oh my God!"

"Breeches!" she said, with an annoyed look in his direction. "Jeff said I couldn't climb the rigging in a dress, so Cathy let me borrow this pair. They shrank when she washed them and they no longer fit her. I think they suit me!"

Mike stared at her, open-mouthed, and she did a little twirl to demonstrate.

"Yes, well," said Horace, taking his glasses off and polishing them furiously, before assuming them again. "The Captain writes that you are to receive three pieces of silver, for your assistance with the nets."

Vicky danced a couple of steps in excitement. "Ooh," she said, as Horace counted the coins into her hand. Seeing Mike apparently unable to move, Horace took one of the few remaining chits and filled it in quickly before handing it to Vicky who signed with a flourish.

"You can't take a pirate's wage!" Mike said, finally gathering his wits. "Vicky!"

"Oh, pooh," Vicky said. "You're just jealous that you are not earning your passage as I am! Well, I have never been able to earn money before, Michael, and I will thank you not to spoil my pleasure in it."

With that, she flounced from the room with a twirl that Mike dazedly noted was more impressive when she had skirts to twirl with her.

"Well," said Horace again. "Ahem, yes. Algernon, you are the last. Six pieces of gold for you."

"What?" said Mike, suddenly coming out of his daze and determinedly picking up his pen again. 

"Algernon," the pirate said, coming over to Mike's side of the table and leaning his hip against the wood. "Though my friends just call me Algie. _You_ can call me whatever you'd like."

Mike dropped his pen from nerveless fingers as he looked up at the pirate. Algernon was younger than most of the pirates, and in considerably better shape, being possessed of a full complement of limbs, eyes, teeth and hair. He wore trousers so tight they made Mike's eyes water to look at them, and his white shirt billowed at the sleeves and was unbuttoned to his navel, showing off acres of skin rippled with muscles. Algie's eyes were brown and had heated considerably by the time Mike's hasty glance found its way back to Algie's face.

Mike blinked. "Um," he said, and then picked up the pen again and hastily wrote out Algie's name and his payment, before handing it over silently. 

"My, my," Algie said, with a wicked smile, as he took the paper and gave Mike a comprehensive glance. "I can see why the Captain was keeping you in his cabin."

Horace took the signed document from Algie. "Quite, quite ill, the poor boy was," he told Algernon. "Fever, or so the Captain told Chester."

"Too hot to handle?" Algernon said, with a roguish grin at Mike than exposed straight white teeth. 

"Um," said Mike, intelligently. He rose to his feet. "If we're done, I should go after Victoria," he said to Horace.

Horace nodded absently, making notes on his ledger, and waved a hand. "Absolutely, dear boy, thank you for your help."

"Shall I show you back to the deck?" asked Algie.

"There will be no need," a cool voice interjected from the door. Rudy stepped into the room, and dismissed Algie with a nod. Algie, not noticeably quelled, winked at Mike, and strolled from the room.

"Horace," Rudy said, "Any problems?"

"None," Horace said, adjusting his spectacles again and clapping the ledger shut. "And young Mr. Webster here was a delightful assistant."

"Indeed," said Rudy, and turned to stare inscrutably at Mike.

Mike squirmed.

"We'll make landfall in five minutes," Rudy said, after a moment. "Time for you to see Pirate Bay."

 

In which Mike is introduced to the delights of Pirate Bay (Part 1)

In the end, and despite Vicky's dancing impatience to be gone, Mike, Vicky and Rudy were the last to leave the _Beaver_ , rowed across the short distance between ship and shore in a small tender by the Reginald the Blackguards, Junior and Senior. Reginald Junior seemed torn between happiness at being back home and alarm at the prospect of confronting his mother over his reduced earnings.

"She'll have me by the ear, make no mistake," he told Vicky, glumly, when she enquired as to the cause of his unhappy looks. "She's only as high as my shoulder these days, but she can be right fearsome."

Reginald Senior grunted what Mike assumed was an affirmative, and the pace of their rowing slowed noticeably as the two men contemplated the prospect of seeing her again.

"'Tis a shame that there weren't captains like Captain Miller back in her day," Reginald Junior said, after a long pause. "Arrr. She'd have been a pirate queen, my mam."

Vicky glanced over at Rudy, who was sitting with arms folded on the narrow bench opposite her. "Do not all ships have lady pirates then?" she enquired. 

"Nay," Reginald Senior broke in. "They say it's thirty year o' bad luck to the captain as allows women on board a pirate ship. Begging your pardon, Captain, sir."

"If you recall," Rudy said, dryly, "I did not so much allow the first of them on board as discover their presence among my crew only when it was far too late to take any humane action to remove them."

"Arr," Reginald Senior said, rather meekly, but Mike thought his expression suggested that Reginald Senior had thought of some inhumane ways to get rid of them.

Vicky, however, looked less than impressed. "Well, why shouldn't girls be pirates?" she demanded of Rudy. "We've a perfect right to be pirates if we wish!"

"Oh no you don't," Mike contradicted her immediately. "I did not rescue you from England at considerable risk of life and limb and _sanity_ so that you could run off to be a pirate."

"You did not _rescue_ me at all!" Vicky retorted. "I rescued myself! And I _will_ be a pirate if I want!""

"Did not!" Mike said, hotly.

"Did so!" Vicky replied, kicking at his ankle.

"Ouch! You did not, you twit!" Mike said.

"Children, children," interjected Rudy, sounding bored, and Mike subsided instantly, feeling his face flush red with residual annoyance and embarrassment. Vicky crossed her arms and pouted.

The Reginalds looked at amused. "If I may be so bold, miss, what did you need rescuing from?" Junior asked Vicky, ignoring his father's quelling scowl.

"I rescued myself!" retortedVicky. "From a dreadful marriage to a horrid, _whiskery_ old man who keeps ornamental pigs."

There was a rather stunned silence at this pronouncement. Reginald Junior appeared to be trying to duck his chin to hide his own rather dashing and piratical beard. Reginald Senior was looking as though he would like to take further issue with Rudy's decision to permit women on board. Rudy was, if Mike was any judge of the placement of Rudy's eyebrows, amused. On cue, Rudy enquired: "Ornamental pigs?"

Vicky waved a hand. "Well, he wasn't keeping them for any _practical_ purpose," she said, dismissively. "He gave them all pet names and did not permit any pork products in the house. And then there was his _mother_ , and really, I was only there three days because our _dreadful_ uncle made me go stay, but between the _pigs_ and the _lectures_ and the infernal _tatting_ it seemed like a lifetime. I cannot imagine how dreary an actual lifetime would have been. I was quite ready to do something _drastic_."

"Luckily, I arrived before she could do anything too dreadful," Mike interjected.

Vicky made an unladylike snorting noise. "But that's all you did," she said, scornfully. "I had to think up a whole tale to tell them, about how I already had a young, healthy fiancé, with no interest in pigs whatsoever, and that he'd most sadly had a bucket fall on his head and lost his memory, but now he remembered me again and had sent Mike to fetch me from his bed of pain." 

Reginald Junior, to Mike's dismay, seemed enthralled by this tale, and even Reginald Senior looked a little impressed at Vicky's ingenuity. Rudy merely looked bored.

"But Mike is the most _dreadful_ liar," Vicky continued, "And in the end I had to pretend to cry a great deal to distract Mr Andrewes and his mother from the hash he was making of our story, and I do not approve of crying _at all_."

She shot another scathing glance at Mike, and Reginald Junior, apparently much too easily led, looked at him with something akin to disappointment too.

"I did buy you a cabin aboard the ship," Mike argued, exasperated. "Which even you must admit was a better course of action than any of your ideas. I do not care what Papa used to say, you are _not_ a good juggler, and no circus would have wanted you."

Vicky just sniffed, and pointedly half turned away. Reginald Junior continued to eye Mike disapprovingly. Reginald Senior was rowing with grim determination. Rudy, when Mike caught his eye, was typically inscrutable, and there was clearly to be no support from that direction.

Mike sighed loudly. Thankfully, before any more could be said, Jeff, who had disembarked from the _Beaver_ some time earlier, called to them from a dock that jutted out into the water in front of the pirate village: "Ship your oars and cast a line!"

Obediently, the Reginalds stopped rowing and, with some small amount of clambering about the small tender and swearing (possibly at Mike, who had already discovered he had a genius for sitting in precisely the wrong place on a vital piece of equipment) a rope was thrown to Jeff and the small boat dragged in to the dock. 

Reginald Junior leapt out lightly to help Jeff as they bumped to a gentle halt on the dock. To Mike's surprise and mild horror, there was then a brief scuffle over who would hand Vicky out of the boat, which she ignored entirely, scrambling out of the boat without assistance, apparently oblivious to Jeff and Reginald Junior's outstretched hands. Mike, by comparison, was quite happy to accept Rudy's assistance when it was offered, as the gentle motion of the small boat combined with residual feelings of weakness after his recent illness made him doubtful of his ability to reach the dock without a humiliating dunk in the harbour first. 

Before they could take two steps towards the shore, a woman of diminutive stature approached. She had a stern face, and from the way that the Reginalds instantly quailed and attempted to hide behind Rudy, Mike could only assume she was the redoubtable mother.

"Reginald!" she called, as she marched towards the party. Her face was set in severe lines. "What is this I hear about you fighting?"

In a trice, she had brushed Rudy aside, and caught Reginald Junior's earlobe between her right finger and thumb. "Ow!" he whined. "Mam, not in front of the Captain!"

"And you," she said, ignoring his complaint and catching her husband's earlobe in her other hand. "Letting our son brawl like some common oik. Shame on you both!"

Reginald Senior was a picture of misery, his posture uncomfortably stooped to match his wife's much smaller frame. "Arr," he said, dolefully.

She looked at them silently for a moment, then flicked a glance to Rudy. "Captain, by your leave, I'll be taking these two worthless men home."

Rudy inclined his head regally, and she marched them away. They were some distance away when a low-voiced appeal from Reginald Junior stopped her. After a brief exchange, she released the ears of her menfolk and strode back up the dock. "Miss Victoria," she said. "My son asks that you be invited to dine with us tomorrow."

"Oh!" said Victoria, beaming. "How very kind of you, Mrs. the Blackguard! But I should not like to impose on you so, especially with members of your family so recently returned to you!"

Mike, who had himself tucked himself behind Rudy upon the formidable woman's return, let out a sigh of relief that Vicky's manners sometimes lived up to her upbringing. Mrs the Blackguard's manner thawed slightly. "You would be quite welcome, miss. I've eight boys at home, and female company is rare."

"Then I would be delighted," Vicky said. "Oh, if I may, Rudy?"

She turned to look appealingly at Rudy, who appeared to think for a moment, and then nodded. 

"You'll be staying at the Pirate Inn?" Mrs the Blackguard enquired. "I'll send young Reginald along to fetch you tomorrow evening at seven."

With a polite nod to Rudy, she walked away briskly again, and there was a yelping chorus of "Ow!" as she gathered her menfolk up by the ear and hauled them away.

Back on the dock, Mike was staring at Vicky, his jaw hanging open. "You asked _Rudy_ for permission?" he asked. "You've never asked me for permission in my life!"

"Of course," Vicky said, patiently, as if explaining to a two-year old. "He explained it to me when he said I could join the crew. He's the captain."

"When he--?" Mike said, faintly. 

"Must we stand on the dock all day?" Vicky interrupted. "I am desperate to see the town."

Jeff immediately offered his arm, and Vicky, after a moment's narrow eyed consideration, accepted, and they set off towards the village.

"Shall we?" said Rudy, offering his own arm.

Mike glared at him. "Don't think you can distract me!" he said, heatedly. "What do you mean by signing my sister on to your crew?"

Rudy looked at him for a moment, then seemed to sigh, lowering his arm in order to gesture towards the direction Jeff and Vicky had taken. "After you," he said, smoothly. 

 

In which Mike is introduced to the delights of Pirate Bay (Part 2)

It was only a short walk from the dock to the village. There were any number of small boats tied up along the dock itself, and more lying neatly turtled in rows along the shore.

"Fishing," Rudy said, when Mike enquired as to their purpose. "And the children all learn to sail dinghies from the time they can walk. They all want to join a ship when they are old enough, as a powder monkey or a midshipman perhaps."

Mike smiled at two little boys who, as if to confirm Rudy's words, were carefully sanding down the hull of an elderly-looking dinghy. They chorused a polite greeting to Rudy as he and Mike passed: "Good afternoon, Captain Miller."

Rudy nodded to them as he passed. As soon as Mike and Rudy had walked away a few paces, a bout of furious whispering broke out. Mike almost giggled at the thought of Rudy as an object of awe among the small fry of the pirate village. 

To distract himself, he asked: "Is that how Smiler came to join your ship?"

Rudy shrugged. "No," he said, but didn't expand on this when Mike glanced over at him curiously.

Mike was about to speak again when they turned the corner into what was clearly the village square and the commercial hub of Pirate Bay. It was surprisingly busy for a settlement of modest size, and Mike was immediately struck by the distinctively piratical nature of the businesses operating on the square. Among the more traditional shops like the butcher and baker were some storefronts that Mike decided could only possibly flourish in this outpost.

" _Peglegs of Distinction_ ," he read, as they passed one such shop. The window held a neat display of intricately carved wooden limbs. 

Just ahead of him, Vicky was reading out the list of services offered by the barber shop. "Menacing beards a speciality," she said, on a laugh. "Golden teeth fitted. Ears pierced, real gold rings supplied. Oh, perhaps I should have my ears pierced. Father never would let me."

"Look at all the wonderful alternatives for a hook, Vicky," Mike said, hastily, overhearing this remark. He pointed at a shop across the square. "Just think how useful to have a parasol permanently attached to one's arm."

"How perfect! I should never lose mine again!" Vicky said, much taken with the idea. "Is that one a corkscrew?"

"Or how about a _sword_ ," said Mike, peering in the window. "Although really, that seems rather dangerous. It's entirely possible that one would accidentally run one's friend through when trying to shake hands. And really, it's not always possible to take a short break before a fight to locate and fit one's arm."

"Remind me to cut Mike out of my acquaintance should he ever lose his arm," Jeff said to Rudy.

Vicky laughed, and Mike found himself smiling back at her. It occurred to him that it had been many months, perhaps even the full year since their father passed away, since he had seen her so free with her laughter, so relieved of care. It was, he thought rather wryly, typical of Vicky that it took abduction by pirates to restore her to the best of spirits. 

He took her arm, drawing it through his so they could walk along the road together. "If we see one, I could perhaps buy you a new parasol to replace the one you lost when we were kidnapped," he told her, and she beamed at him and squeezed his arm.

"You are an excellent brother," Vicky said, kissing his cheek. "Even if you are a hopeless liar with no appreciation for the art of juggling.

Luckily, before Mike could take issue with comment, Rudy interrupted.

"The Inn is just ahead," he said, pointing to a building nestled between _Eyepatches for All_ and _The Shiver Me Timbers Café_ Pieces of Eight exchanged here!.

From the outside The Pirate Inn did not seem terribly prepossessing, Mike thought, but once through the door this initial impression proved to be misleading. Rudy was greeted with great enthusiasm by the innkeeper, who accompanied them to their room himself, flinging open doors to his best rooms, complete with fires flickering welcomingly in the grates and large comfortable looking beds. Their belongings, brought over by Jeff earlier, were arranged neatly, and they were promised a light meal the moment they wished for it. 

Mike fell face first onto his bed before the innkeeper had even managed to bow himself out of the room. Several minutes later, the door opened again and light, familiar footsteps moved towards the bed. Mike rolled over with a sigh and propped his head up with a large feather-stuffed pillow.

"Not that I don't appreciate you giving up your bed on board the _Beaver_ for me," he told Rudy, who had discarded his jacket and was leaning against the post of Mike's bed, eating an apple. "But I am very glad to lie down at last somewhere that doesn't roll and yaw every moment."

Rudy just inclined his head at Mike and took another bite of his apple.

Mike picked at the bedspread for a moment. "Rudy," he started, and then stopped, uncertain. Innumerable questions hovered on his tongue, but he could not imagine Rudy answering any of the,. He tried again, forcing himself to keep his voice light. "How did you come to know of this place?"

Rudy raised an eyebrow. "Jeff and your sister have gone out," he said, as if Mike hadn't spoken. "Jeff to buy supplies for the ship, Vicky to plague him with questions as he does so, no doubt."

Mike smiled. "She is very taken with the idea of life as a pirate," he said, accepting the change of subject. "And she will no doubt return with several ideas on how to improve your marketing. She is a great one for improvements, most especially when she has not been asked to suggest them."

"I am sure Jeff will be delighted to hear her suggestion," Rudy said, blandly, and Mike laughed. A short silence fell, and Mike found himself growing drowsy.

Rudy took one last bite of his apple and then threw the core neatly into the fire. It came to a halt in the centre of the flames, of course.

"My room will smell like apple sauce now," Mike complained. "Also, if I had tried that, I would have somehow set the curtains on fire, I am sure."

"True," said Rudy. "May I suggest that you don't make the attempt?"

"You may," Mike said, with a grin. He yawned, and rubbed his eyes, but could not stop himself from blinking sleepily, his eyelids growing heavier by the moment. The room was quiet, only the soft crackling from the fire and a little distant noise from the busy square audible. 

Mike was almost completely asleep when Rudy spoke again. "I had your letter, two years ago," he said, abruptly. His voice was as expressionless as ever. "It was very kind of you to write what you did."

Before Mike could gather up his wits, though, Rudy had left the room, and he was left to speak to an empty room: "I meant what I said."

~ * ~ * ~

Some hours later, Mike awoke to the sound of Vicky's laughter nearby. He seemed not to have moved at all since he fell asleep, although somehow his boots had been removed, the curtains drawn and a light blanket draped over him. He was still struggling to consciousness when the door burst open and Vicky bounced into the room. She stopped a few steps from the door, and frowned at him disapprovingly.

"You are in bed _again_ ," she said. "I have never known a man sleep so much!"

"I have been ill!" Mike protested, but she waved a hand in dismissal of this claim.

"I have had a very interesting afternoon," she informed him. "And I have several suggestions to make to Rudy about the manner in which he runs his ship. Is he about?"

"If you make even one of your infernal suggestions," Jeff snarled from the doorway. "I will throw this entire tea tray out of the window, and you will have to get your own."

Mike perked up. "Did you say tea?" he said, hopefully.

Jeff stalked into the room and set a loaded tray on a low table near the fire. Mike regretfully abandoned his bed, and came over to sit in one of the armchairs grouped around the fire. Vicky took the seat next to him and took charge of the tea tray.

Jeff threw himself down in another chair as far from Vicky as possible.

"It really was interesting," Vicky was saying, as she prepared Mike's tea with the ease of long familiarity. "I had no notion of the complexity of arranging the victuals for a large pirate crew. Still, I believe I noted some improvements that could be made, despite my inexperience in the matter."

She passed Mike his tea and began pouring another cup. "Not that First Mate Bossy Trousers here appreciated my thoughts," she said, with a small sniff.

Jeff made a growling noise deep in his throat, which Vicky ignored. "One lump or two?" she asked, sweetly, holding the sugar tongs over a teacup.

Mike hastened to intervene before Jeff could throw the contents of the cup at Vicky. "Have you been Rudy's first mate since he… since he obtained the _Beaver_?" he asked, a little hesitantly.

Jeff glared at Vicky, and then ostentatiously turned away from her to speak to Mike. "Yes, we came here together," he said. "He tried to leave without me, but I followed him, and would not let him go alone. I have been with him ever since."

"When he left?" Vicky asked.

Jeff glanced at her, then with a hint of guilt, towards the door to Rudy's room. "He… You know what happened," he said to Mike, who nodded.

"Well, he might, but I do not!" Vicky said, aggravated.

"Vicky," said Mike, softly. She glanced at him swiftly, and Mike could only imagine what was in his face that she was silenced.

"We left England to go to Canada, my mother, Rudy and I, some two years ago, " Jeff said, looking fixedly into his cup of tea. "But everywhere we went there were so many others recently arrived from England, and the resemblance between us, between Rudy and I and… and our father, so marked, that time and again we would be recognized, and life would become no more bearable than it had been in England."

He shrugged, and looked up. "We moved several times in that first year," he said. "My mother seemed to grow more tired and worn with every move, though, and we feared for her health. The last place we lived, where she lives still, was pleasant, and she made friends there."

Standing up, Jeff paced to the fire. "It seemed cruel to make her leave," he said, "And we knew that the day would come again, because it seemed to come everywhere. One night I came down to the kitchen late for a drink of water, and I found Rudy preparing to leave. He had left her a letter."

He paused again, and then resumed his seat. "I could not let him go alone, so I came with him," he said, simply.

"Next time I shall leave you at home," said Rudy, with a trace of asperity in his voice. 

All three of those in the room jumped and swung around to face him. He looked blandly back at them.

Mike leapt to his feet. "Rudy!" he said, "We were just. Um."

Rudy looked at him. Mike stuttered. "Um," he said again. "Having tea? Would you like to join us?"

Vicky frowned. "We were just talking about-- ow! Michael! Watch where you are putting your great big feet!"

"Well, you should not sit where I can step on you," Mike said, seizing on the distraction.

"I was not!" Vicky said heatedly.

"Were too," Mike countered, with a nervous look at Rudy. 

Rudy raised his eyebrows back at him, and came over to join the small party by the fire. Vicky kicked Mike's ankle, distracting him, but despite the ensuing war of words Mike did not fail to notice that Rudy paused by Jeff's chair to murmur something in his ear that made him flush pink and look stricken. By the time Rudy himself had taken a seat and prepared a cup of tea, Mike's disagreement with Vicky had petered out. It was Rudy himself who steered the conversation onto safer ground, enquiring blandly of Vicky what recommendations she had to improve upon his brother's purchases. The ensuing discussion, which Rudy seemed to have entered into entirely out of a desire to take revenge on Jeff, lasted through tea, dinner, and right up until bedtime. It was not until Mike was once more ensconced in his mercifully unmoving feather bed that he could dwell upon Jeff's tale of Rudy's decision to leave his family behind in the dead of night and flee towards an unknown destiny.


	4. Alarums and Excursions (or, the Bruno & Boots Regency!AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This stalled out because (a) everything I know about the Regency I know from reading romance novels; and (b) I couldn't quite work out the ending.

Part I: In which Boots is bowled over. No, really.

The sky was leaden, almost black, and the rain that had threatened to fall for the last hour of their journey beginning to fall in fat drops by the time the coach rattled to a stop at their final stop in London. Melvin O'Neal, known as Boots to his intimates, felt his shabby cloak grow damp as he stepped out of the coach. He paused to take in the chaos around the carriage, the filthy, rubbish-strewn coach yard and the people milling about, unaware he was blocking the carriage door until he was nudged sharply in the back.

"Out the way, boy," a dour voice insisted, and he jumped, and moved away from the steps of the carriage. The clerk, Mr. Fudge, whose bony knees had prodded Boots throughout the interminable hours from Banbury, shoved at Boots again rudely as he exited the coach. Boots inched away and essayed an apologetic smile, but the clerk just sniffed, and turned his attention to berating the men unloading the bags.

"Now then, Mister O'Neal," said the Widow Jenkins in piercing tones, as she too emerged from the carriage. "You will not lose my direction here in London, I hope. My daughters would be delighted to meet such a well set-up young man as yourself."

She smiled at him, displaying her black and missing teeth, and Boots struggled not to flinch away. "You are too kind," he said, hastily, recovering his manners. "But I fear my aunt has first call on my time while I am in London, and I can be spared from home only for a few weeks."

The redoubtable widow looked set to protest this demur, but to Boots' mingled relief and dismay, the gentle patter of raindrops turned suddenly into a downpour, and she wasted only the merest civilities on him before hastening away and out of the rain.

Ned, Boots' young serving man, appeared at his elbow, his eyes wide and jaw hanging open. "Is this London then, sir?" he said, in slightly scandalized tones, his nose wrinkling. "Bit of a pong, isn't there?"

Boots laughed. "What did you expect?" he said, signalling to the men unloading the bags to set his at Ned's feet. "All these people living on top of one another. It's a wonder they can breathe at all."

"I don't know what I expected," Ned said thoughtfully, shouldering Boots' bags as they were passed to him. "Streets paved with gold, maybe. Not this muck, anyway. My father keeps the cow shed cleaner."

Laughing again, Boots tugged on Ned's elbow, moving him out of the path of a heavily laden porter. "The gold would be in broken fragments in the pockets of half the people in town before the first night was over," Boots said. "Just watch where you walk and try not to step in anything too vile." 

He looked around, frowning. "If you're up to it, I think we should walk a little way. We'll never find a hackney here."

Behind them, an argument had broken out between the sharply boned clerk and the mail coach workers. Rolling his eyes, Ned adjusted Boots' bags and his own small haversack on his back. "Yes, sir," he said, "Best we get away from all these gabblers, anyway."

Mr. Fudge, overhearing this, sent one last disapproving look at Boots, who was hard-pushed not to respond by pulling a face at him. "This way," Boots said to Ned instead, pointing to the right where a busy street could be glimpsed around a corner. "I'm sure there will be a hackney to be had over there."

Ned, he was amused to observe, obviously cared less for his dignity than Boots himself, and had occupied himself while Boots spoke by sticking his tongue out and crossing his eyes at Fudge, who had fortunately turned away. "Right you are," he said cheerfully now, his attention drawn back to Boots.

They set off, Boots shivering a little as the rain seeped into his shoes and down the collar of his cloak, Ned still wide-eyed as he gawked at the sights and sounds of the streets. So occupied was he in looking up at the windows of the houses that lined the road that he stumbled awkwardly on an uneven patch of cobbling as they approached the wide boulevard at the end of the road.

"Watch out!" said Boots, alarmed, stretching out a hand to try to steady him. Unbalanced by his load of baggage, Ned staggered and stepped into the thoroughfare as he tried to remain upright, never seeing the horses bearing down swiftly upon him.

Boots grappled desperately with Ned, trying to shove him out of harm's way, even as he felt his own feet slipping on the greasy cobblestones. Time seemed to stretch unnaturally, the cacophany of the street reduced to just the rapid clip of hooves on stone as the carriage approached, his own ragged breathing and the rapid thud his heart.

Just as he thought they must surely be trampled and crushed underfoot, Ned seemed to just let himself fall backwards, sending them both sprawling to the ground, mercifully out of the way of the dancing hooves of the team of horses. The driver of the carriage, who, Boots now realized, had been shouting at them as he tried to drag his team to a halt, continued to curse them roundly as he tried to settle the restless team. Boots ignored him, and the unpleasant dampness and smell of the ground under him, concentrating instead on recovering his breath and thanking the almighty for his delivery from an ignominious death. 

Beside him, Ned sat up and rubbed his head with a grimace. "Oh, give over," he called up to the coachman, "We did you no harm, which is more than you can say."

The coachman redoubled his vituperations, and Boots suddenly saw the wisdom of his father's suggestion that he bring a more experienced servant with him to London. However, the staff at home could ill be spared, and Ned at least he knew to be both loyal and enthusiastic about this adventure. Boots sighed and sat up too, preparing himself to intervene before Ned and the coachman could come to fisticuffs.

Before he could say a word, the window of the carriage slammed open and a very familiar face, looked out at him. "Boots! What the devil are you doing lying on the ground over there? No, wait, never mind that. Why the devil didn't you let me know you were coming to London?"

The door to the carriage was flung wide, and a slim figure, dressed in a pale blue coat that would make the village quizzes back in Oxfordshire stare and boots so polished Boots could see his face in them, bounced down onto the street. The man held out a hand, impeccably gloved, to Boots and offered him a wide, well-remembered grin. 

"Bruno," said Boots, and despite the rain and the way his elbow was aching and his dire suspicion that he was sitting in something very unpleasant indeed, he could not help smiling in return as he accepted the proffered hand. "Of course. Who else would try to run me over before I've even been here a half an hour?"

Part II: Lord Malbon, I presume

After only a minimum of fuss and only a quickly hissed reassurance to Ned, who was eyeing Bruno and his carriage with suspicion, Boots was installed in the carriage alongside Bruno. Ned took a seat beside the coachman, who looked like he wanted to protest but did not dare. Boots' bags and his odoriferous cloak were tied to the back on top of Bruno's own. 

"You are fortunate to have found me, or, I suppose, not quite so fortunate given the circumstances of our meeting," Bruno was saying with a grin as he dropped into his seat in one corner of the carriage. "I am myself only just arrived back in London. Where are you staying? No, actually, never mind that, I'm taking you home with me for now."

He tapped the ceiling of the carriage with a silver-topped walking stick, and turned to look at Boots, his eyes warm and friendly.

"It must be quite three years since I saw you last, Bruno," Boots replied as the carriage moved off with a jerk, feeling a little shy suddenly. "Though I suppose I ought to say Lord Malbon now."

Bruno threw a carriage blanket at his head. "You had better not," he retorted, with a grin. "For I have no intention of calling you Mr O'Neal."

Boots grinned back, enormously relieved at the familiar tone of Bruno's voice and the smile he would recognize anywhere. There had been a moment, after Bruno's first warm greeting, when he had found himself a little bewildered at the change in his childhood friend. His fine coat and boots, the elegance of his crisply folded cravat and his artfully tousled dark hair were a thousand miles away from the rumpled, rough and tumble boy Boots remembered from their shared schooldays. He'd found himself staring at Bruno, unnerved by the changes in his childhood friend and unhappily aware of his own countrified appearance and untidy blond hair. He was suddenly conscious that his wardrobe and person had probably not been improved by the uncomfortable hours in the mail coach and his subsequent close encounter with the streets of London.

"Just as well," was all he said now though. "I would be sure to look over my shoulder for my father if you did."

Bruno laughed. "And how is your father? And your mother, and Edward, and your sisters? In good health, I trust."

Boots glanced out of the window as the carriage rattled around a corner. He swallowed hard. "They are all well, yes. You would scarcely recognize the girls, so tall have they grown. And… Perhaps you have heard that my brother has joined the army. The 52nd Infantry. They are an Oxfordshire regiment."

"My mother said something of the sort in her most recent letter, yes," Bruno said, looking at him thoughtfully. "I must confess I am surprised. I had not thought him the type to long for battle."

Boots made a little sound. "Your mother is well?" he said, to turn the subject. 

Bruno looked at him for a long moment. "She is well enough," he responded after a short silence. "She mourns my father still, and though she has been distracted by this unexpected inheritance of mine, she is not yet reconciled to his loss."

He paused, and then continued, softly: "Nor yet am I, to be truthful."

There was a pause, and then Bruno continued, more cheerfully. "How he would have laughed to see me elevated to a peer of the realm, though," he said. "He always swore I would end my days at the end of a hangman's noose."

"Now you will be entitled to the executioner's block, at least," Boots responded, dryly. "If you mean to go on fomenting rebellion as you were wont to from the House of Lords, will you let me know? I shall take steps to leave the country, post-haste."

Bruno laughed. "I will be sure to warn you," he said, patting Boots' knee. Boots looked at the hand on his leg, and blushed, cursing his fair skin as he did so. 

Luckily, Bruno was distracted by a sudden lurch of the carriage as they came to a halt outside a large residence. "Malbon House," he said, gathering up his gloves and hat as a footman opened the carriage door for them. "As gloomy a residence as one could want. I had high hopes of ghosts or spectres the first time I clapped eyes on it."

"Any luck?" Boots said, with a chuckle, as he too stepped down. He looked up at the façade of the building, which was indeed large and gloomy, and punctuated with leering gargoyles.

Bruno looked put-upon. "Not one," he complained as they went in through the front door. He handed his hat and gloves to his butler. "Mumbledon, this is my dear friend Boots O'Neal. He requires a room, a bath, and a change of clothes for our dinner engagement tonight."

The butler glanced at Boots. "I see, sir," he said, in a tone that suggested he really _did_ see, and quite agreed with Bruno.

"Bruno!" Boots protested, suddenly realizing he had followed Bruno home like a stray puppy, without a thought for his own plans. "My aunt and uncle are expecting me."

"Send them a note," Bruno said, unconcerned. "Don't they live in Putney? Whyever would you want to go there when you could stay here?" He flapped a hand around the gloomy hallway.

"But your own staff will not have been prepared for a visitor," Boots argued, recognising a lost cause but still fighting, "And I am sure you must have social engagements. Did you not just mention dinner?"

"The staff will manage," Bruno said, and Boots caught Mumbledon inclining his head majestically in agreement before Bruno shepherded him into a room off the vestibule. "I promise you will be very welcome at dinner. Though I must let them know or our hostesses will complain that I threw their numbers off."

"Bruno!" Boots said again, laughing as Bruno shoved him gently towards a wing armchair in what had proved to be a large study-cum-library. "You cannot simply… Do stop _poking_ me, Bruno! You cannot simply order me to stay! I am not a dog!"

Bruno laughed too, and refrained from manhandling Boots long enough for him to drop into a second armchair close to the fire. "Oh, sit down, Boots," he said, "Please. You cannot think I am going to let you go now I have you in my clutches again. Best to just resign yourself to it. Now, how long are in London for? A few weeks? Perfect. You shall stay here then and bear me company."

Boots began to laugh again. "Oh Bruno," he said, sitting down. "Your manners have not improved, I see."

Bruno grinned at him complacently. "How could I have changed?" he said, without a trace of modesty. "I am perfect as I am!"

"You're perfectly something," Boots agreed. "Insane, perhaps, or ridiculous. I'm sure we know a dozen people between us who would agree."

"Ridiculous? Me? For that, I will arrange to have a frog put in your bed," Bruno said, grandly, sniffing with mock-indignation.

"Arrange?" Boots said, choking on a laugh. "You're too grand to do it yourself these days then? I remember all too well the days when we'd chase frogs around our room at school because you'd been carrying one around in the pocket of your trousers."

"Don't be ridiculous," Bruno replied, grandiosely. "A peer of the realm can't be seen with his breeches stuffed full of amphibians. Causes talk, that sort of thing."

They were giggling like the schoolboys they had once been when Mumbledon came into the room and cleared his throat loudly. "My lord," he said, "Mr O'Neal's room is ready."

"What?" said Bruno, trying to catch his breath, "Oh, yes. Excellent. Do go up, Boots. If you wish to have a note carried to your aunt, I will have it sent round at once."

"Thank you," Boots stood, and looked down at Bruno where he sat sprawled, still grinning, in the armchair. "Bruno, thank you."

Bruno waved a hand. "Don't thank me," he said, lazily stretching his toes out towards the fire. "Thank whichever benevolent deity threw you into my path again today."

Boots' breath caught a little, but he just nodded, and allowed Mumbledon to lead him from the room. 

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Ned was waiting for him in his room with a steaming tub of hot water, a freshly pressed set of clothes, and a thoroughly befuddled expression. 

"They thought I was your valet below-stairs," he explained, when Boots asked him what was amiss. "Kept suggesting that I iron things and what not. Didn't like to say I was your groom."

Boots looked over at the clothes neatly arranged on the large canopied bed. "Maid," Ned said, briefly, "Took kindly to my pretty face and did it for me."

Boots raised his eyebrows. "And there's Maggie the blacksmith's daughter pining away for you back home," he said, teasingly.

"Oh, give over," Ned said, with what looked suspicious like a blush. He busied himself arranging some of Boots' possessions on a large dresser. "It's not nearly so grand below-stairs, this house. They tell me the new master, your friend, he's changed it for the better, but even he can't put windows in underground or stop the wind blowing through the attics, and the grooms and coachmen have it even worse."

Boots nodded. "Then you shall be my valet while we're here," he said, firmly.

"Just tonight, then?" Ned said, looking at him curiously. 

Boots shook his head. "Bruno… that is, Lord Malbon has invited me to stay here," he said. He unbuttoned his coat, holding it out in front of himself and pulling a face over a patch of muddy slime on the back.

"What would your father say to that?" Ned said, cautiously.

"My aunt and uncle could not have put me up above a night," Boots said, shrugging. "Their house is too small. I was to find a modest inn for the remainder of my stay, so he will be glad for my expenses to be thus reduced. My father knew Br… knew Lord Malbon when we were children."

Ned continued to look doubtful, and Boots sighed at him. "You take his strictures to watch over me too much to heart, Ned," he said, mock-seriously. "Do not forget I am your senior."

"By six weeks," Ned scoffed.

"I will write to him upon the morrow," Boots said, and passed Ned his coat. "Does that soothe your worries?"

"Yes, sir," Ned said, and took the coat with a curl to his lip. "Mind you do though."

Bruno rolled his eyes at him and sat to pull his boots off.

"Er," Ned continued, awkwardly, as Boots' fingers went to the buttons of his shirt. "You'll want my help with the bath then?"

Boots blinked at him. "Hell, no," he said, and Ned laughed. "You can go fetch me some water to shave with though, if you please."

"I'll go find out how to get street muck off your coat, too," Ned said, and vanished with a clatter out of the bedroom door before Boots could say anything more. 

He finished disrobing quickly, and lay down in the hot water with a sigh; he felt muscles stiff from his travels begin to loosen. He stared up at the ceiling, which was covered in complicated patterns, picked out in what Boots could only assume was gold leaf. 

Who would have ever have thought Bruno Walton, once the scourge of MacDonald Hall, the small boarding school they had attended together as boys, should ever become a peer and the owner of this grand, if drafty abode, Boots thought, sinking a little deeper under the water. Bruno's father had been a gentleman of comfortable means, but by no means of great fortune. He could probably have sent Bruno to a school of greater fame, but he had chosen MacDonald Hall instead for his only son. Or perhaps, as the rumours had it, MacDonald Hall was the only school that had been willing to take Bruno. 

Boots smiled reminiscently. Their headmaster must have regretted that decision time out of mind, he thought, although Boots was glad of it. Bruno had made his mark on the school from his very first day, when he had tried to lead a rebellion against the school uniform. It was put down, alas, but somehow in the melee he and Bruno had become fast friends, and Boots' history at school thereafter had been rather more marked with incident than his own father might have liked as a consequence.

Boots sighed again, and pulled himself, dripping, out of the bath. History, indeed, he thought, reaching for the pile of linens Ned had left for him. He had last seen Bruno at his father's funeral, pale and tired in unrelieved black, his mother leaning hard against him. Looking back, he thought of that moment as a fork in the road of their friendship. From there, Bruno had taken up his responsibilities as a land owner, and then Boots' own life had plunged into its current state of turmoil. All their half-formed plans -- to go up to Oxford together, and then to do the Grand Tour -- were swept away by the tide of responsibility. The letters they exchanged, once crossed and re-crossed, became mere notes, scribbled in haste and barren of all but titbits of news.

Boots shook off his melancholy. At least he had rediscovered Bruno, he told himself, shaking out his clothes and looking at him critically. Their paths would not have crossed save for Ned's clumsiness, but now at least Boots could look forward to a little company while he set about putting his plans into motion. Knowing Bruno, he'd have composed a dozen of his own plans by the time Boots saw him again this evening.

He was smiling at this thought as he descended the stairs to the hallway. 

"His lordship is in the library, sir," Mumbledon said, sweeping a disapproving eye over Boots when he reached the bottom of the steps. Boots' good mood faltered at this all-encompassing disapproval, but Bruno's cry of welcome as he pushed open the library door quickly restored it. 

"Boots!" Bruno said, jumping up from his seat. "I've had an idea, well, several ideas, for entertaining you while you're here!"

Boots laughed. "Of course you have," he said, smiling, "Do not forget, I do have business of my own to pursue."

Bruno looked at him curiously. "Yes, I forgot to ask," he said, without a trace of apology. "Why _are_ you here? It's not like you to venture so far from Oxfordshire."

"I…," Boots started, and then paused. "Family business," he said, after a moment, somewhat lamely. 

Bruno looked at him. "What kind of family business?" he asked.

Boots blinked at him. Bruno never had had the least tact, he reminded himself. 

Fortunately, before he had to invent something to satisfy Bruno's insatiable curiosity, a servant appeared in the door and cleared his throat. "Your carriage, m'lord," he said. 

"What? Oh, thank you," Bruno said, and gestured to Boots to precede him through the doorway. "Let's be off then."

Boots accepted his hat and gloves from a footman and watched Bruno assume his own outdoor attire. "Where are we going, by the way?" he enquire, mildly, as they stepped out of the house and into the waiting carriage.

"You'll see!" said Bruno, and then embarked on a series of observations about the houses they were passing and their occupants. Boots could not help laughing as Bruno recounted ever more scandalous and unlikely histories for the unfortunate inhabitants, and the short journey was thus pleasantly occupied. 

They drew up in front of a pretty, modern house in a quiet side-street in a fashionable part of town. It was brightly lit and welcoming, and Bruno jumped down enthusiastically almost before the footman could lower the step, and beat a tattoo on the door. Boots followed at a more moderate pace behind him, handing his hat to the servant who opened the door with a smile he hoped conveyed his apology for his friend's poor manners. 

"Here he is," Bruno called out, as Boots stepped into the room he was directed to, "Boots, here _is_ a happy circumstance -- allow me to re-acquaint you with someone you ought to recognize."

Boots blinked at the tableau of men and women in the room, feeling vaguely shabby and embarrassed against their elegance. His eye swept over a petite blonde woman at Bruno's side, and was immediately arrested. "Diane?" he said, his eyes widening. "I mean, Lady Diane! Is that indeed you?"

She laughed. "I see Bruno did as he promised and gave you no warning," she said, allowing Boots to take her hand and bow over it. "It is I, indeed!"

He smiled at her as he released her hand. "I am delighted to hear it," he said. "Today is a day for happy reunions, it seems!"

Lady Diane beamed at him. "The first of many, I hope," she said. "I am quite in agreement with Malbon. Now that we have found you again, we must be certain not to let you go. We shall invite you everywhere, until you are thoroughly sick of our company."

"We…?" Boots echoed, his brow wrinkling in confusion. 

Lady Diane sighed, and nudged Bruno with her elbow. "I see you also did not tell him our _other_ news," she said, and Bruno looked a little sheepish. "Not everyone likes to be surprised, you know."

Lady Diane took Bruno's hand. "Malbon and I are to be wed," she said, and smiled blindingly up at Bruno.

Boots stiffened, his stomach dropping to his toes before leaping up again. He swallowed hard. "Married?" he said, his eyes flying to Bruno's. 

"Yes," said Lady Diane, and placed her hand lightly on Bruno's arm. "Is it not wonderful?"

Boots looked at them both. "Wonderful," he said, "Yes, indeed."


End file.
